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End of Year Update 2020!! 

www.gethinandbex.com/partner

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Amoss' Update... April 2020

Hey Family!!!

        We'd ask you where you all are, but we already know... You're locked down at home! (...and if you're not, you should be!) This truly is such a bizarre time for most of the world and it's no different for our family. A few days ago we arrived back to the UK, having taken one of the UK repatriation flights from Johannesburg.

It was quite the dramatic adventure trying to get back to the UK... we ended up walking out of Eswatini with our luggage on Easter Sunday and Bex's birthday as we weren't allowed to drive out; we were met by UK consular support at the SA border and then had a speedy police escort to a designated hotel in Johannesburg. The following day we had an eight coach police escort to a closed O.R. Tambo International airport (quiet airports are the weirdest!), with police sniffer dogs and many health screens (kids loved it); we then told the kids to hold their breath for 11 hours as we flew back to London Heathrow. An aeroplane full of masked people with 'don't look at me, let alone breathe in my general direction!' stamped on their foreheads. Afan, 'the-2-year-old-who-touches-everything' as he's known, was a big hit as you can imagine! We were relieved and grateful to be met by Bex's folks in a car park at Heathrow airport; they'd brought up a vehicle for us to drive back as we began our 14 day quarantine.

Previously, in Eswatini, we had been in isolation for around 3 weeks and were trying to decide what would be the best decision for our family. With Calon and Afan often having lung problems/Asthma, and medications being sometimes hard to come by, with the UK recommending repatriation and with increasing Covid-19 confirmed cases in Eswatini, we decided it would be best for our family to take one of the flights put on by the British government and wait out the storm closer to our family.

What does this mean for us and Children's Cup?

Well, nothing has really changed, other than our location in the world. In Eswatini and South Africa, both nations are on a lock down and as such our staff was unable to travel and are working from home where possible. Like many of you, we were house bound and have been directing remotely. First in Mbabane, and now in Wiltshire, where the UK and Eswatini in recent days have both extended their lock downs by 3 weeks.

As far as Children's Cup goes, fortunately we were able to preempt the restrictions that would come in to Eswatini based on the experiences of many other nations. Because of this, we were able to get 7500+ food and soap ration packs out to our children across Eswatini and South Africa before the restrictions and lock downs came in. We gave enough food for over a month and we are now initiating our second round of ration packs. This time we will be relying on the local pastors and facilitators within the communities we work in to take care of food distribution in a very careful manner, according to some specific guidelines we've drawn up including, no hand to hand contact, active social distancing of 2 metres and where possible gloves and masks. Right now, whilst many of our usual ministries are having to be paused, one of the ways we are still able to help during this crisis is by continuing to provide the food that we would normally cook at our CarePoints. We may not be the ones cooking it, but our prayer is that it will go some way to alleviate the strain of making ends meet, when many of our families are now unable to work in any capacity.  

Some general updates... Well it's been a very up and down start the year that's for sure. We welcomed a new baby cousin into the family in January, with baby Ffion being born to Bex's sister Abi, and husband Stu. We also had some friends and colleagues visit from NYC, Joe and Emily, during February...

Fortunately, their trip was just before the world closed down, so we were able to visit some programs. Bex's dad Chris also visited in early March with other family, Sarah & Peter; we were able to celebrate Afan's 2nd birthday together in Mbabane.

On March 18th, we said goodbye to Bex's gran, Joan, as she passed away at 93 years old and having lived the fullest of lives. A matriarch of the highest order, her family her greatest achievement and priority, she will be honoured in a famous Perkins family celebration when the lock downs are over. Because they will end...  

We now find ourselves in quarantine at Bex's parents home in Wiltshire UK, fortunately able to close some doors and keep ourselves separate. Like you, we will be homeschooling the kids and having many Zoom work meetings. In these uncertain times, GRATITUDE is often a wonderful antidote to fear and anxiety. We are grateful for your prayers and messages, your support and love. We're grateful for loving family, available friends and a heavenly father who brings light from the darkness.

Praise Points:-

Safe arrival to the UK and a space to quarantine.

Communication... The internet is a tool for good, and we're grateful for it.

Family time... more than we could ever have imagined!

For our on the ground staff in Eswatini and South Africa. Grateful for a team that works together for the greater good.

Prayer Points:-

The Coronavirus situation in Eswatini and South Africa.

Health in our family... Praying we didn't pick anything up on our journey.

Children's Cup Leadership, staff, Pastors and volunteers.

Covering costs for our repatriation flight.

Our Liberty Church community in Manzini

With all our love and prayers,

Gethin, Bex, Liliwen, Calon & Afan

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Here are some video clips of Guguletfu (Treasured Ones), our program supporting families with children with disabilities. The event was held at River Valley Church eSwatini Campus. With the help of 50 volunteers we were able to serve 21 families from around the country. Each child was paired with a volunteer to help them move around the stations that were set up (face painting, Bouncy castle, arts and crafts and games.) The caregivers were able to meet together to have a much needed time of respite and chance to share stories and support one another.  We ended the day coming together for a delicious Braai (BBQ).

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2018

In what seems like a hearty joke, 2018 is indeed now upon us; the speed of it’s arrival leaving us breathless at the many blessings and challenges faced & accomplished during 2017. Like us, we’re sure this New Year hasn’t started any slower than the last one ended for you.

As a family though, we start this year with thanksgiving in our hearts. We’re thankful for the many blessings we have in our lives, our family and friends, our roles, church and Pastors; people who have believed in us and continue to believe in us and our work here in Swaziland.

With that said, we start this year being thankful for YOU, our supporters! No matter the amount, the faith it takes to commit financially and prayerfully to us and our roles here is seen, known, and appreciated! Without your ongoing love and giving we wouldn’t have made it through the first year, and yet by grace, here we are in our fourth… And to those we’ve met along our journey whilst here, those who’ve decided to faithfully come along side and support us, we say a heartfelt THANK YOU!!

Family Update

January 2018 finds Bex 7 months pregnant (due first week of March) and Lils & Cal turning 2 ½ at the end of the month. Safe to say, Liliwen and Calon arrived in the 2’s with a bang!! We’ve had days where we felt like pulling our hair out and days where we can’t believe we had anything to do with making these little angels!

Lils has seemingly potty trained herself without us having to do anything, which isn’t surprising for this fiercely independent young lady, who responds to her mother when asked to come inside for dinner, with statements such as “Uh no, we’re helping daddy fix the car!”, when dad is changing a car lightbulb and the twins have spent the last 5 minutes running around said car, screaming & chasing each other with sticks.

Cal isn’t particularly interested in toileting well at the moment, if he’s near a potty he may use it, he may be just as likely to run out of the bathroom professing “I did a wee!”, “Did you do it in the potty?”  I ask, “No, on the floor, but I clean it up.” He has indeed mopped it up off the tiles using the shorts he was wearing just a moment before. “Do we reward this behaviour or reprimand it?” I ask Bex.

Needless to say, parenting twins is stressful & busy but A LOT of fun! Lils, recently said her first unprompted prayer just before bedtime. She said, “Heavenly Father, thank you for today!”, which we obviously thought was adorable. Cal managed to top it a couple of weeks later when asked if he wanted to pray. His first prayer, very solemnly, “Heavenly Father… Thank you for Liliwen’s feet.”

Over Christmas, we were here in Swaziland and it was hot, so we were able to go swimming most days. The kids’ confidence in the water is now great, with them swimming all-over using their floaty arm bands. Christmas to New Year week was peaceful & restful for us as a family, even though we weren’t able to be with extended family.

Liliwen and Calon will be starting nursery two days a week at our chosen preschool at the end of January, with special thanks to dear friends who made it possible and have covered this year’s school fees.

Ministry Update

For Children’s Cup during 2017, we were responsible for the Wellness Team in Swaziland. The team responsible for doing basic health care on our CarePoint children, managing extra care health needs such as HIV/AIDS treatment, social welfare, as well as Guguletfu and our disability support program.

The big change this year is that we’ve just handed over leadership of the Wellness Team to one of the team members, who is a Registered Nurse. She is local and has been on the team for the whole of last year; she has the character and leadership skills to continue developing the team as the numbers of children we serve continuously grows.

Why did this happen? Well, simply put, every role we have worked in since arriving in Swaziland has been for the purpose of handing it over to a local. Thus, making it more sustainable. If, for whatever reason we should have to leave, the programs will continue.

We are remaining part of the Wellness Team, as our Disability Support Program falls under the Wellness umbrella. As far as Cup goes now, our focus will be on developing the disability program and Guguletfu to meet more children’s needs across more of the CarePoint sites. There are now 32 CarePoints across Swaziland and South Africa with over 11,000 children attending the Children’s Cup Christmas parties last December. We are praying to find someone who we can train as a disability coordinator, someone who can be a point person for the programs we are running, someone who will learn and become as passionate as we are for those with disabilities and their families.

Within Liberty Church, we are continuing to work alongside Community Pastors Lue & Zinty Ncube as coaches over the new Liberty Church Manzini community, launched in May of 2017 and over the Liberty Community Centre. The second half of 2017 has been an incredible journey for the church as many more individuals & families have got connected and really begun to be part of the flourishing community here in Manzini.

Together, we are serving as elders, on the leadership team, within the kids program, facility management and other areas, helping to live out Liberty’s values of Love, Truth, Freedom, Family & Others.

January is Liberty’s 7th birthday since officially launching at the Tribeca Cinemas, NYC in 2011 and it is amazing to think of all that has happened and come from Paul & Andi Andrew making the incredible decision to move their family half-way around the world, from Sydney, Australia, to NYC where they knew only three people, for a vision that God had given them. If it wasn’t for stumbling into a Liberty Church gathering near the end of 2010, we may never have come into our calling, and arrived here in Swaziland as ambassadors of the Church. Liberty is one church with 6, soon to be 8, different communities and we are blessed to be part of this enduring story of God’s love.  

This Year

We are believing for major things this year! We start the year off with Liberty’s Vision Sunday on January 28th, where as a church we get to look back on all the things that have happened over the past 7 years and cast vision for the future, with all its beautiful possibilities.

Guguletfu (Treasured Ones), will kick off the year in February as we believe to serve more families affected with disabilities than last year, and aim to find the perfect person to be trained as a coordinator for disabilities.

We are believing for a healthy baby and delivery here in Swaziland. We have a doctor and hospital we trust and will be giving birth here in Manzini the first week of March. Bex is super strong right now and makes other pregnant women look like they’re not even trying, (can I say that? I just did;) We’re praying this transition for our family will be a healthy & happy one, especially for Calon & Liliwen who welcome a new sibling.

We are believing for continued growth and lives changed at Liberty Church and Liberty Community Centre. The community centre is changing lives with it’s free access to musical tuition, educational support and skills training and the church is committed to bringing people into a truly loving community where they are known, valued and appreciated. We are believing for many more lives to be impacted & transformed with God’s love.

We’re believing for more supporters to come along side us in our journey here, to partner with us faithfully, prayerfully and financially as we seek to walk-out the vision placed in our hearts.

 Thank you for taking the time to read,

With love, from Gethin, Bex, Liliwen, Calon and bump X

 To financially partner with us please click here. To sign up to our Newsletter, please email gethinandbex@gmail.com

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To partner with us here in Swaziland please click HERE.

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GUGULETFU (Treasured one’s)

Most of you will have seen on social media the event we held on Saturday April 29th. Guguletfu (Treasured One’s) was an event for families with children who have disabilities. It was an incredible day where Children’s Cup, Liberty Church and Adventures in Mission came together in partnership to serve these families. We had 21 Children with one parent/guardian each and 47 volunteers come together for a wonderful day of fun, fellowship, support and encouragement.

The parents/guardians were able to gather together for a time of friendship and support, while their children were being looked after by volunteers in the next room. For some of these men and women, this 2hr time was the longest they had spent away from their child; they relaxed knowing their children were being loved and cared for. With each other, they shared stories of how isolated they felt with many not realising that there were other families struggling with similar situations. There were tears, laughter, joy and compassion surrounding the whole room.

Pictured above is  Babe(Mr) and Make(Mrs) Methula. Babe Methula is one of the first contacts we made here in Swaziland when starting the Disability Ministry. He is the President of FODSWA (The Federation of Disabled in Swaziland.) You can read more about him and FODSWA on our previous blog here.  Babe Methula came and spent time in open discussion with the parents helping to redefine their understanding of disability and what they can do to help change others  perspectives of disability.

Meanwhile next door and outside the children were split into groups and rotated through several different activities such as the bouncy castle, sensory station, crafts and face painting.

Our wonderful Wellness Team from Children’s Cup also came along to help facilitate a small clinic to check over each child and provide any necessary medication.

What better way to end the day than a dance party for everyone.....

This was the first of hopefully many Guguletfu events that will be held here in Swaziland. We are so grateful for all of our supporters for making this possible.

If you would like to partner with Guguletfu and us here in Swaziland please visit our partner page here.

[gethinandbex]

The Year Ahead...

2017. We can scarcely believe it ourselves. So what does this year look like for us? Well, most people who receive our email newsletters may now know the dual roles we now find ourselves in with Children’s Cup and Liberty Church...

With Children’s Cup, we are leading the Wellness Team, which means as well as the Disability Support program, we are managing the mobile clinics which go out to each of the 24 CarePoints, coordinating the care of children affected by HIV/AIDS in our CarePoints and overseeing any social work cases for our children too. No a small task, but we are surrounded by a great team that's focused on serving our children to the best of their ability!

Children in line to see Nurse Ruth at Makholweni Carepoint for the first clinic of 2017.

Our Disability Support Program has so far been individually based, visiting homes and helping families with interventions on a one-to-one basis; but we have a brand new connection with the Adventures In Mission ministry who are also working on expanding a disability program.  We have been able to meet and collaborate together what this could look like. This April we will be holding our first large event for several families with children who have been diagnosed with disabilities. The event will be held at the Liberty Community Centre and we will be bringing together families and children to hopefully provide respite, support and education for the parents as well as recreation and fun for the children. Stay tuned...

With Liberty, we are the coaches for the Liberty Community Centre which is located in the heart of Manzini, the largest city in Swaziland. We are working with Lue and Zinty who are the Directors here running the day to day programming. We have seen the Community Centre grow so much in the past year, really becoming a part of the community and a safe place for the people of Manzini to come and be together. Our after school programs have been running every Wednesday and Friday, where children have been able to come and get help with homework tuition and also, attend our free music lessons which have been very popular with children wanting to learn to play guitar, bass, piano or drums.

We are also in coach roles for the new Liberty Church plant. Launching in May this year, our team meetings have been running for 5 months now and in December we started monthly gatherings, which is basically a 'practice church service' to see what we need to change/get better at. Lue and Zinty will be the Pastors and they have have been doing a wonderful job reaching out to the people of Manzini, hearing the needs of the community and trying to create a church that isn't focused on serving itself, but on serving others.

First launch team meeting of 2017 for Liberty Church Manzini.

Finally, there is the parenting of our two little monkeys, Calon and Liliwen. My goodness they have grown up so fast! Calon is our sensitive sausage; he is so caring, compassionate, patient and definitely the joker of the pack. Liliwen; she is feisty, independent, kind and can pull the best faces for every occasion. They are doing so well and make us better people by being here with us. They have really just become part of our team; we take them to our meetings, they come with us to the CarePoints and as you can see from the pictures below, they fit in like locals. We are still figuring out what this year looks like for them and whether we will find someone to help us in the day with them, or if we sign them up for a few days a week to a local playgroup. We will keep you updated.

Lils and Cal attending preschool at New Village CarePoint. 

We just want to say a huge thank you to all of those that have supported our work out here over the last 2.5 years, we literally wouldn’t be able to do it without you. We are so thankful for our prayer partners that cover us in protection and love.

If you are interested in partnering with us this year please go to the partner us page…

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Sekwanele’s Story

Sekwanele is a 7 year old boy who lives in Thulwane, where Children’s Cup has one of its CarePoints. While we were away on furlough, we had a message from our medical director here in Swaziland telling us about a child with Cerebral Palsy, he has not been able to receive any treatment so his muscles were very tight and his movement in his limbs were little to none. We were able to give some money through our Disability ministry to get him some physiotherapy and occupational therapy sessions at the only rehabilitative centre for adults and children in Swaziland.

When we came back from furlough we were visiting Thulwane CarePoint and were able to meet Sekwanele and his mother, Nompumelelo. I remember seeing him for the first time, his smile was contagious and he was so captivated by the twins. His muscles were still very tense and it took a lot of effort for Numpumelelo to be able to sit him up. When we were about to leave Numpumelelo grabbed her blanket and picked up Sekwanele and attached him to her back just as all the women do her to carry their babies, Sekwanele however was not a baby he was a grown boy and I can remember thinking that must be an awful lot of weight for his mother to carry to and from home every day as well as her bags and whatever else she was carrying.  

We were able to meet with Numpumelelo and Sekwanele just a few weeks later in early June, to do an intake and find out more about their situation. It was amazing to be able to see the difference just a few weeks of therapy sessions had done for Sekwanele.  He is an only child and is cared for by his mother and father. His father makes building blocks for a living and his mother is his primary caregiver. They live in a house with 8 other people.  We asked Numpumelelo what needs they had in the home and she told us they did not have water , they get  their water supply from the river which was a walk from their home and carried it back in buckets. She also shared the increasing difficulty of getting places with Sekwanele as he can’t walk so she carries him everywhere and he is getting bigger. She was so happy about the therapy sessions for Sekwanele as she said she could see improvement in him every day. She takes him to the sessions and then is given exercises to continue at home.  

The following month Gethin was able to get in touch with a lady who was connected with the free wheelchair mission organisation here in Swaziland. They had a chair available so we were able to pick it up from the south of Swaziland and deliver it to Sekwanele.  He was a little bit apprehensive at first but as you can see in the photo he was all smiles about his new ride once he had got used to it.

We are so excited to continue to help Sekwanele and Numpumelelo and will keep you updated with their story.

[gethinandbex]

Wearing Three Hats...

2016 has rolled in thick and fast as we find ourselves in the middle of February and our little babes at 6 months old. As we begin this New Year, we thought it best to give a more detailed update on our life and work here in Swaziland, with Children’s Cup International. The New Year finds us excited for what’s to come but also busier than ever...

Our roles here with Children’s Cup have developed and evolved quite considerably over the last year and a half. From our arrival in July ‘14 & our initial understanding that Swaziland was going to be a ‘stepping-stone’ on our road to working in Zimbabwe; to now being firmly established here & developing a new arm of Children’s Cup ministry specifically serving those with disabilities, as well as being at the beginnings of a life-giving Community Centre in the heart of Swaziland’s largest city, Manzini.

Discipleship Director Coaches

The one consistent role we have done since arriving here has been as coaches for the Director of the Discipleship team, which oversees all the CarePoints. This role entails using our supervisory experience and Bex’s organisational wizardry to ensure that the Dteam Director is on-point with all the necessary tasks in order to run the department effectively & smoothly. The Dteam essentially supervises all the facilitators and the Bomake (volunteer cooks) as well as managing the preschools and children’s clubs at the 19 current CarePoints across Swaziland. Dorah (3rd from left) is the Dteam Director and she is an incredible woman with an unwavering passion for her work and the children we serve. She used to be a facilitator at a CarePoint and has grown over the years to now being the director of all the sites. Oh, and the woman is also superhero too, on top of that she also has 9 children of her own! Over the last year, her confidence and understanding of the Director role has gone from strength to strength which has allowed us to be a little more flexible with our time and thus embark on new projects that our dear to our hearts…

Disability Support Programme

We came to Swaziland to partner fully with Children’s Cup. We’ve not hidden however, our passion for those with disabilities and have made several relationships and contacts over our time here to this effect. At the end of last year we were having plans developed, and then scrapped, and then re-drawn again, trying to work out what is the most effective way of staying under Cup’s umbrella but beginning to meet the needs of those in our current CarePoint communities who may have disabilities.

Our program is now in full-swing and involves intakes/home visits taking place in two of our communities. The families are met with & assessed, and the individual concerned is evaluated to see what interventions are necessary and what would have the largest positive impact on them and their family’s lives. (Above, Simpiwe stands with her father and brother.) The program though is still in its infancy and there is plenty of room for changes & growth as we continually evaluate the process & progress made.

Liberty Community Centre, Manzini 

Our home church, Liberty Church NYC, has partnered with Children’s Cup to begin a much needed community centre in the middle of Swaziland’s largest city, Manzini. We are taking on a coach role in this new enterprise as Lungile & Zinty Ncube (pictured with us) takes on the day-to-day directing of the programme. The purpose of the centre will be to meet the needs of the surrounding community by providing youth programmes, disability services, programmes for alcoholics and drug users, academic support, music instruction and anything else that becomes an apparent community need. The centre will also offer a supporting role to the Children’s Cup Manzini CarePoints which is an important current need. We have recently secured the lease on an old restaurant in Manzini (above) which lends itself very well in terms of space and location for the community centre.

So, our three differing but very exciting hats are keeping us on our toes here in Swaziland. Add to that our regular duties of caring for New Village Carepoint & our own two little blessings and our plate is pretty full. Please stay tuned as we make developments in each of these areas and remember us in your thoughts and prayers!

Also, an exciting calendar moment coming up is that we will be returning to the UK for the end of March and through April 2016. Children’s Cup requires it’s missionaries to take an extended trip home every 18 months - 2 years in order to share stories and reconnect with supporters, visit family and generally recharge the batteries. If you’d like us to share in a community you are part of, please send us an email and let us know! 

If you would like to support our work financially and are not doing so yet, please click here. If you have any problems with it just shoot us an email.

With love,

Gethin, Bex, Liliwen & Calon

[gethinandbex]

A few recent snaps from Swaziland...

Bex, Calon & Liliwen visit the I Am Not Forgotten orphanage in Mbekelweni.

Big smiles from the little ones at  at Mbekelweni CarePoint.

Dancing in the aisles at the annual bomake (volunteers who cook for the children) appreciation party!

We recently hosted the Christ Tabernacle church team from NYC. They spent a week serving the Thulwane community, helping with construction of the new preschool and putting in playground equipment.

The babies being introduced at our own CarePoint in New Village, near Manzini.

...and Liliwen lapping up all the attention at New Village CarePoint. The babies were naturals and there were no tears!

[gethinandbex]

Change of Direction

As most of you will know, Swaziland was initially a stepping stone for us and our main intention was to head to Zimbabwe to work alongside Liberty church NYC and Children’s Cup International in Sauerstown, Bulawayo. The connection for both Liberty Church and Children’s Cup in Bulawayo was a partnership with the local Celebration Church Network.  It has recently been decided by the leaders of Celebration Church that the complexities of managing multiple stakeholders with different visions and values, and the realities of multiplying that effort across the number of campuses that they had engaged partners for, were too great for their team on the ground. Therefore, they have decided to no longer be including partners in their work in Zimbabwe to the extent they have in recent years. This impacts on us and Liberty Church NYC as they were one of these partners.

What does this mean for us??

Ultimately, this means we will no longer be moving to Zimbabwe. We’d like to clarify here that it was a decision that we played no part in and it came as quite a shock to us personally.

The positive aspect right now is that our roles with Children’s Cup are very secure and our support from Liberty Church NYC is unwaivered; also the partnership between Children’s Cup International and Liberty Church NYC is very strong. So strong in fact, that Lead Pastor Paul Andrew has just spent time visiting with us here in Swaziland to see the many projects and tasks that we have been involved in since moving here. We were also able to travel through the Mpumalanga province of South Africa and see several other feeding sites where Cup is beginning to have an impact. Also, come October, we will be hosting a team from Liberty Church NYC as they seek to impact the communities & help several projects develop here in Swaziland.

Though we didn’t see this coming, we are choosing to see this change in direction as an exciting opportunity to expand our already growing ministry here in Swaziland. We have completely fallen for Swaziland and its beautiful people, so the time we have already spent acclimatising will now be utilized even more than if we were to start ‘from scratch’ in Zimbabwe.

Our work in Swaziland will carry on as we are excited to continue developing the D-team (team that oversees the CarePoints), as well as expand on our experience in working with adults and children with disabilities. The reality is that within the poorest communities, the ones who are most marginalised and most unlikely to get out of that situation, are those who have disabilities. We have already surveyed the CarePoints for disability prevalence and we are now aiming to come up with new ways of connecting any child with a disability to the CarePoint. We are also hoping to develop sustainable partnerships with other organisations here in Swaziland so that any family connected with us, is also made aware of the other support/opportunities that are available to them.

 We are incredibly thankful for the opportunity we have to work with some amazing people and help change lives within the communities that we work. We are also very grateful to all of our supporters that partner with us each month, both financially and through prayer. Without you, none of this would be possible! On that note, if any of our sponsors have any questions we would love to hear from you, so drop us an email…

With that said, we will continue to be faithful with our opportunity to serve and revel in the chance to share all that is happening down here in Swaziland!

With much love and God Bless,

Geth and Bex

[gethinandbex]

Power Camps

Over the last few weeks here in Swaziland it has been the school holidays for the kids, so the Dteam (which Geth and I work with) have been busy visiting 18 of our CarePoints to run power camps for the children. These camps ran for a few hours at the CarePoints, as something fun for the kids to look forward to in the holiday. We split into two teams and visited 2 different CarePoints each day. This year’s theme was the story of David and Goliath. The day consisted of games, songs, colouring, acting and ended with a movie and some snacks.

We had such a great turn out at our CarePoints, nearly all of them having over 100 kids and some almost topping 300 kids, requiring us to have 2 showings of the movie.

Here are some pictures from the Camps.....

Gathering together at Moneni CarePoint to sing songs and play games. My favourite song of the power camps was the remix version of “Bingo was is name...B.I.N.G.O��� changed to “David was his name...D.A.V.I.D”

Colouring in pictures of David and Goliath at Mbekelweni CarePoint.

This is Alex who lives at Children’s Cups I Am Not Forgotten Home dressed up as Goliath about to act out the fighting scene at Mbekelweni CarePoint. 

Turning the preschool classroom into a movie theatre for the day at Mangwaneni CarePoint. 

Finally, Gethin’s creative design for a rural cinema to make sure even the kids out at our most remote CarePoints, which do not have buildings yet, get to watch the David and Goliath film. 

[gethinandbex]

2015 Update.....

2015 is in full swing and we are just about coming to the end of summertime here in Swaziland. We have had a wonderful start to the New Year, seeing it in with my (Bex) parents out here. It was great to be able to show them around and give them a bit more of an understanding of where we are and what we are doing. The office opened up again at the beginning of January bringing in a new season, new goals, new challenges and even a few new CarePoints.

After spending our first few months in Swaziland experiencing and learning about the various departments that make up Children’s Cup, we finally settled down into the D-team which takes care of the hands-on management at the CarePoints; including supervising the facilitators, Preschool, feeding, youth clubs and Bomake cooks. At that time, there were 6 members in the team (pictured at one of our Christmas party planning meetings). Nelly, our fearless leader (bottom Right), Dorah (Next to Geth) and Patience (front of Bex) were responsible for Preschools, Zabiba (next to Patience) was overseeing youth clubs at the CarePoints, and Make Barros and Doreen (Left, top and bottom) who work with the Bomake (the women who volunteer their time to cook at each of the CarePoints). Also pictured is one of our Cup nurses, Jessie.

2015 brought a lot of change for the D-Team. Nelly has started her own women’s ministry work in her home community of Malindza. Zabiba has also left to further her career with a new job. Dorah has stepped up to take the head of the team and continues to run the education side with Patience. Also, the youth section is now a shared responsibility between the D-team and the students from the Global Leadership Academy. So the department now has 4 national staff members, with us providing assistance in all program areas, but specifically by coaching Dorah in her new role as a Department Head. During this time we are continuing to learn all the intricate aspects involved in successfully managing a CarePoint, including the many different calendar events and community functions that make them so effective. The more we learn and take in here, the better the transition as we train and coach national staff to do the same, once we are in Zimbabwe.

Every day, we have the realisation of how valuable this time is and how blessed we are to be learning from such experienced people. We have also been using our time here to offer our knowledge & experience of working with people with disabilities to help better equip the teachers at the CarePoints. We started this year off by tasking the teachers to identify the children within their own community who may have disabilities, so we can help ensure these children and their families are aware of the CarePoints and the support that is available around them, whether through Children’s Cup or another agency providing help to those with disability.

A little about Zimbabwe…

So what’s going on in Sauerstown, Bulawayo? When are we moving there? What involvement do we have there now? These are a few of the questions we thought would be good to try and answer…

Above is a picture of ‘The Stand’ in Sauerstown, Bulawayo. This is the land that Liberty Church NYC was able to purchase in partnership with Children’s Cup and Celebration Church Network. The purpose being to partner with the local community by building a CarePoint and preschool, a church, a playground, sports fields and community gardens/vegetable plots. As of now, a toilet block has been built on the land and the tents pictured were bought for the community to provide a temporary Church/community building before the physical structures go up. Liberty Church NYC is currently looking to add a playground to the land for the children in the community. The land will eventually house a CarePoint building that will double as a church and community centre. At present, the land is being used weekly for community events and church services. Church services are held on Sunday and there are instrument lessons taking place on Saturday. They have also been doing family fun days, Youth Clubs and recently held a very successful couple’s dinner for Valentine’s Day.

The community feeding program and kids club are currently taking place at Hugh Beadle School in Sauerstown. Community volunteers cook outside in the school yard and use food provided by Children’s Cup to offer a daily meal for the children. ‘The Stand’ will eventually provide a purpose built CarePoint and kitchen, much like the ones in Swaziland, with a preschool, a playground and sports fields.

We moved to Swaziland knowing that we may be here for up to a year before getting to Zimbabwe. This would include time to reap a lot of the learning that we will require for Zimbabwe and also time for our visa applications to come through. As of now, our contacts in Zimbabwe have informed us that it would be good to wait a little while before submitting our visa applications to make sure we get a favourable response. We have our visa paperwork ready to submit and we are awaiting the go ahead. As described above, we are busy with the D-team and CarePoints here in Swaziland, so anytime left here we are intending to utilise to the utmost.

Also, for clarification, the work in Sauerstown is not being held up by our absence. There is a wonderful team of people within Celebration Church Network and Liberty Church Zimbabwe that are working to slowly develop the community and land. When we do arrive, we will be focussing our attention on the development of the land and the CarePoint to help bring it into full fruition. Further to this, in the coming few months we will be making more regular trips to Zimbabwe to help ‘keep up to speed’ with progression and thus aid our transition when we do move.    

All in All, 2015 is going to be another incredibly exciting year and we are eager for the challenges ahead. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as our adventure unfolds and know that we are extremely blessed to count you as part of our support family.

Much love and God Bless,

Gethin & Bex

[gethinandbex]

Christmas Parties at the CarePoints… A very special time of celebration that the children look forward to each year! In total, around 6000 children came through all the CarePoint gates. There was singing, dancing, eating and whole lot of love… celebrating Christmas together, in the best way possible!

To support our work here in Swaziland, visit gethinandbex.com/partner

[gethinandbex]

Children's Cup graduates over 600 children every year through it's preschool education program based out of the CarePoints here in Swaziland. Beccy and I had the privilege of helping the team to facilitate these celebrations. Each graduation ceremony involves the children demonstrating the knowledge and skills they have learned throughout the year to very proud family & friends before wearing their cap & gowns and receiving a certificate.

Bex & I took some video clips throughout the week to help give a little insight into these wonderful celebrations and these beautiful children. Enjoy!x

[gethinandbex]

FODSWA

You never know what sort of connections and links you will find in conversation with new colleagues. What started as a simple conversation about our work within the field of disabilities, led us to meeting a man who could be a huge resource for us here in Swaziland.

Our colleague Sandra, suggested we meet Babe Methula (Pronounced ‘Bah Beh’ – means father in Siswati, but is used as ‘Mr’). Babe Methula goes to her church and he has some connections with the Federation of the Disabled in Swaziland (FODSWA). Sandra was able to make a plan with Babe Methula for us to meet him during the week and it was at this point we thought we should ask a few more questions to find out who this gentleman was and also what his role was. So... It turned out we were about to meet the President of FODSWA.

We heard various things about Babe Methula from those that knew of him, “He works with people with disabilities”, “Isn’t he the chicken guy?”, “he’s blind, right?”, “he runs one of the CarePoints over in Manzini”.  So off we went to meet this very interesting sounding man.

We met on the grounds of the Deputy Prime Ministers office in the centre of Mbabane. We found out that this was not the official FODSWA office building; that was a few streets away. However, that building was not in use at the moment as there was no electricity or water due to a lack of funds. Currently FODSWA receives temporary office space from the Swazi government but all their financial support comes from external sources including World Vision, Save the Children, Japanese International Corporation and others.

FODSWA offers services and aims to empower the disabled. It is comprised of 5 main categories:-

-          Visually Impaired

-          Physically Impaired

-          Hearing/Speech impairments

-          Albinism

-          Association for Parents of Children with Disabilities

It was great to be able to chat with Babe Methula and find out more about his background and his work supporting those with disabilities in Swaziland. Despite being born with only 2% of his sight, with the support of his parents, younger brother and other extended family, he was able to get to a ‘regular school’ for primary and high school education. His family were adamant that his sight would not hold him back or stop him from achieving his goals. His struggle through school was not because of the difficulty of the work but more that the teachers were never informed of his impairment in his eye sight. He told us he would often get in trouble because he would leave his seat and walk directly up to the board to see what was written.  Often teachers would think he was troublesome and it wasn’t until other children in the class confirmed his story that the teachers then made accommodations for him. By the time Babe Methula was at University, they were very accommodating to his needs and they would have all the notes large printed for him. For a person with a disability to achieve what he has done here is very rare in Swaziland; he said his supportive family played a vital role in him completing his education. Currently only around 5 percent of the Swazi population will achieve a university degree, regardless of disability status.

Before meeting him we had heard that he “was the chicken guy”. He does indeed have his own chicken business which he uses to support himself and help his community, in Manzini.  He also joined with Cup to help start up a CarePoint and a free preschool, which he now oversees with another facilitator.  In 2009 he joined FODSWA and started working within the department that focused on supporting the visually impaired. He was involved in many meetings, at which he always contributed and not just for those visually impaired, he would also stand up for disabilities as well. It was no surprise then when he was elected by the federation to become their president in May of 2013.

He told us about the struggle to see change for people with disabilities and about the stigma that people with disabilities are unable do anything for themselves. He let us know that the perception is gradually changing, for example, now there is actually a discussion about disability whereas before it was solely a “hidden thing” that was rarely mentioned.

The Swazi Government has a policy in place called ‘Vision 2022’. It is a vision that Swaziland will be considered a developed nation by the year 2022. Babe Methula believes that in order for this to happen there needs to be support and equality for people with disabilities within Swaziland. Records at the moment show that 16.8% of the population of Swaziland are disabled.  At the moment there is no law in place to specifically support people with disabilities. FODSWA has written up a draft of a bill in this area to present to the government. FODSWA is hoping for this bill to be passed by the end of the year. They would like to see equal opportunity for all, regardless of disabilities. They would also like to see an employment quota set in place, to help people with disabilities get jobs. Furthermore, they would like to see specific funding be allocated for developing disability supports and empowerment.

In January 2014, Babe Methula had the opportunity to go to Japan with the Japanese International Corporation. He was there to attend a best practice course for provision of supports and services for people with disabilities.  This trip had a huge impact on his life and on his vision for Swaziland. It was here that he noticed at every stop light there were audible traffic lights and at every crossing there were Brail Blocks. He was even opened up to the fact that people with developmental disabilities can have jobs, earn money and live as independently as possible. His idea of equality and what is possible for people with disabilities was pushed to a whole new level. He loved telling us about how amazed he was when he met a blind police officer in Japan.

After he had returned to Swaziland, he arranged a meeting with a high up police officer. During the conversation Babe Methula confidently told the officer about the blind policeman he had met whilst in Japan. The Swazi officer responded by asking “but what can he do as a police officer?” to which Babe Methula replied, “Police don’t spend all day chasing criminals.” He got out his laptop computer and asked him, “What would you like me to type?”  There was a quiet pause as Babe Methula started typing on the keyboard.  He turned the screen toward the officer to show him what he had written, ‘National Police Commissioner of Swaziland’. He continued by saying, “and it’s not just your job title I can type out, what would you like me to research? I will get you the information”.

Babe Methula is slowly changing mindsets here in Swaziland. He knows that people with disabilities have a wealth of unharnessed skills and that the only limits they have, are the ones set for them.      

This probably was one of the most interesting afternoons we have had in Swaziland so far. We are so grateful for not only the opportunity to meet Babe Methula but also know to have him as a resource as we continue our work here in Swaziland and into Zimbabwe.