Meanwhile in Africa...

Hands at Work in Africa
Meanwhile in Africa...

You are listening to "Meanwhile in Africa..." by Hands at Work! The following podcasts are meant to inform, encourage and challenge you. They are short accounts of our work and reports from the ground. Hands at Work is a Christian organisation that believes that 'true religion is to care for widows and orphans in their distress' (James 1:27).

  1. 03/31/2023

    Meanwhile in Africa... Beautiful Fragile Miracles

    8/07 Today was my last day here in Goma, and it's like God just gave me the most beautiful evening to look at the sunset, and the lake is dead calm. It's like a mirror. Early this morning, I decided to spend my last day in Buhimba. When I arrived, Laurine, our coordinator, Sylvia, Teresa, were all down with malaria, coughing, sweating, but they were at the Care Point. We sat outside this morning under the tree to try and get more fresh air around us to try and prevent more of us to get sick. And as Bindhu desperately tried to get us to worship and sing, I could just sense such a fragileness, a heaviness, among everybody as they were sick, and the toll of the ongoing war. Then they asked me to share. How do I share? How do I encourage them? What do I even say to them? It's times like that where God's tears speak the loudest language. And I think, as we sat all together, realising that I'm leaving tomorrow, there's just the silence and, and the weeping. We said kind words to each other, we reminded each other that we love each other. Afterwards, I got up and I walked into our Care Point and I sat in a dark room where 25 kids were sitting on a dust floor eating porridge. Boys, like Bahati, which I couldn't imagine would ever have survived if we didn't initiate the zero to five programme only six months ago. There's a gratefulness in my heart as I watch these kids eating, and I realise how desperate their brains and their bodies need this nutrition to become strong and healthy. I looked outside and I see our Care Workers coughing and sweating. I just handed out the last bit of medication I carried for myself and I was thinking, "I'm leaving tomorrow morning, and we are so fragile." We are so fragile. But if I look at the children sitting in front of me, it's a miracle! It's beautiful! Isn't that how it is with all of our lives? It's beautiful. It's a miracle, and yet we are so fragile. We are always only one step away from a disaster.

    3 min
  2. 03/24/2023

    Meanwhile in Africa... Ongoing Love

    8/06 This morning I'm recording the "Meanwhile in Africa..." out of Goma. I've been here in our children's camp since very early this morning with Bindu, where we are facing a cholera outbreak, and we really ask you to pray with us, that God would protect all of us. But this morning I wanna speak to you about 'ongoing love'. You know, many, many people all over the world respond at the moment to me and say, what can we do? And I'm hesitant just to answer, because I don't want a quick response, and then we forget. I want us to become aware of what's happening in the world ongoingly, and I want us to respond. [Hello Sasha!] I want us to respond changing our lifestyles, the way we pray, the way we live and the way we give. That's not easy for all of us. Many of you can remember the story of Alliance, the girl with a stick that had such a cross face. Nobody knew where she was from. Then we tracked her down and she became part of our Care Point, and I saw her change into this amazing girl, full of laughter and joy. Well, when I met her again this time, she was just dirty, depressed, and broken. It shattered my heart, you know. I found out that somebody was abusing her physically. They burnt her school clothes, burnt her school books to prevent her from going to school. And there she was weeks after it happened. I saw her. And I just realised, you know, love is not a success story instantly, it's ongoing. So, we had to pull her out of that depth - that miry pit, you know. Buy her new school clothes. Get her new books. And this week I sent her to school again with Bindu, and once again I could see that smile on her face. You know, it just helps me to understand Alliance's story, in the beginning, was a great story. But that's not enough. We're gonna have to keep fighting for Alliance because she was rescued once, but like all of us, she needs to be rescued continually. As we reached out and gave her a second chance, that's what Jesus does for all of us. That's how we need to be with each other. For that, we need to have eyes that can see, and we need resilience to continue to push. May God bless you as you change people's lives.

    3 min
  3. 03/17/2023

    Meanwhile in Africa... Openly & Unashamedly

    8/05 It's One of the things we love in Hands is vision. We love the Hands Vision. All of us bought into the Hands Vision. All of us believe that the Hands vision is what God called us to do and we are passionate about it. This last week, here in Kachele in Zambia, I had the privilege to spend the week with over 50 church leaders and their wives. Oh, it was so wonderful to see all the pastors bringing their wives. We sat down and we dug into God's word. We looked at the mandate he gave the church. We listened to stories. There was one pastor from Kapiri - he's in his late sixties now - he said last year, it was the highlight of his year to come together. This year he brought his wife and at times we watched them, tears in their eyes, as they listened to God's word and they heard young pastors full of fire and zeal. Then we got to a place where we shared about the Hands vision - to get to the communities where nobody goes. I started sharing with them about Alugbo in Ibadan, Nigeria. How some of our Service Centre staff had to walk through rivers to get to these isolated communities, and how the children were dying, and how they are caring for them now, and how the love of Jesus was brought. We spoke about many other areas. The Democratic Republic of Congo and in Zimbabwe! Then we said to the churches, this vision belongs to the church. We are only with you to help you, but the time is coming when you must take this and run on your own, because we need to get to more communities. We need to go further. I held my breath. I didn't know what was gonna happen after we shared that, but I want to tell you, the pastors wept. They stood up, they shouted to us, "You must go! You must go! We receive this vision. This is our call!" It was one of the most incredible moments many of us have experienced for many years, as we sat back there under the thatch in Kachele. All of us were just committing ourselves before God, before one another, that we're gonna go further and deeper. The churches that already saw Hands, and they saw the model in front of them, they are putting up their hands and they say, we are ready to run on our own church. There's something beautiful, happening and we are part of that.

    3 min

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You are listening to "Meanwhile in Africa..." by Hands at Work! The following podcasts are meant to inform, encourage and challenge you. They are short accounts of our work and reports from the ground. Hands at Work is a Christian organisation that believes that 'true religion is to care for widows and orphans in their distress' (James 1:27).

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