Tangible Hope

It’s when you spend a day with people who have nothing that you actually become aware of what you have yourself.

Although I said outright that this trip definitely wasn’t a ‘kick-ass mission to help orphans’, thanks to contacts in South Africa and above all God’s staggering proficiency at organising opportunities, last saturday I had the privilege to help out at Lebone Land, and spend a day with the children who live there.

Lebone is an orphanage in the Free State which is  ‘Dedicated to bringing hope, dignity and support by providing holistic care to children affected by HIV/AIDS, their families, and all people affected by poverty.’ And they really do. The children there, even though they have barely anything to their name, are happy, well-fed, and, above all, loved. And they are so loving as well! Within minutes of my being there they were treating me like they’d known me forever and the little ones were even calling me papa!

One thing that was really good fun was playing a bit of music with them. They have a piano and a guitar, so half way through the day an impromptu music lesson broke out! We had a sing-along with ‘Wave your flag’ and ‘Waka Waka” (which thankfully both have easy chords!), and then later I taught a boy called Richard some simple piano stuff. He wants to be a hip-hop artist, and would really like to do piano ballads, and you know what? I think he’ll make it. He picked the song up really quickly, even though it was two handed, and we actually got a bit of pedal in there at the end! Very impressed indeed.

And that brings me on to another point. These kids are clever. They aren’t happy to sit and simply accept the defeat they’ve been dealt. No, they want to be lawyers and singers and go to university. They play chess as well as football, and enjoy things like ‘economic management’ at school. They have a drive to do something with their lives, even though it will be an uphill struggle, and that was humbling to see. In the west we have education handed to us on a plate. For them, getting somewhere in life will be hard.

Take for example the boy in the picture to the right. As you can probably see, his right hand is messed up. I don’t know exactly what’s wrong with it, but it’s pretty much stuck in one position, and will be for the rest of his life. But that doesn’t stop him. One of the most touching moments of the whole day was when he called me over to the climbing frame, and, with visible difficulty, un-curled his right hand with his left, positioning it around a rope so that he could start climbing. And then he looked at me and smiled. The feeling of pride that he so evidently had, and that he wanted to share with me, was truly wonderful. These children are not going to take life laying down.

And that’s the beauty of Lebone. The people who run it give their absolute all for the children. They don’t get paid very much, and rely almost entirely on donations, but the hope they bring to the children is almost tangible. You cannot fail to be uplifted.

The day I spent with the kids was awesome. I have so much more that I could write about (like how God provided a ‘feeding-of-the-five-thousand’ style bread delivery half way through the day!), but I’ll save it for another post, I think. Just be praying for the kids, and, if you can, please donate a bit to the work. Thank you!