Kids Helping Kids

Turn The Tide Canada has begun in earnest!

Last week, two articulate and motivated ten year-olds ran a pasta dinner fundraiser in Ontario to help raise funds for other kids their age in Malawi.

Kids Helping Kids - it was the theme that kept coming up.

Because that's what it was. It was two ten year olds doing something powerful to help other ten year olds born into different circumstances. It was two kids in the western world of plenty coming to an dawning understanding that "there but for the grace of God go I."

We are never born with such understanding and compassion. Our kids will never just randomly turn into compassionate adults. Like us, they must learn it.

In all sports, practice builds muscle and effectiveness. So it is with the hearts of children. They can be given opportunities to work hard and help others, flexing their compassion muscle, making it potent.

This is what I witnessed last week: egged on by their parents, I watched two young kids take decided steps towards embracing a life of compassion for the vulnerable. In pursuing such a life, I believe it won't just be the kids in Malawi whose lives are changed.

Helped by their parents, India and Clark rented a hall, called all their friends, family, and basketball teams and invited them to their dinner. They held meetings deciding menus, enlisted the support of Google to decide on quantities,  and asked friends and family to help by bringing a dessert to share.

By 5.30pm on Saturday night, the little hall was full with over 100 people.

As kids arrived with their parents, India and Clark asked them to help. Kids served the pasta and sauce. They filled pots and stirred salads. Kids cleared the tables, filled glasses and helped clean everything up afterwards. It was beautiful to see how completely enthusiastic all the kids were to participate. They were begging to help, asking for jobs, sticking around at the end to sweep the floor.

They each wanted to be noble and giving - perhaps they just didn't really know how a kid can do that.

Oh how I pray they caught the bug for how absolutely thrilling giving to others can be.

In the Bible, God tells us to give. That you are blessed if you do.
But what if the "blessing" God promises is not the sense of "being a good person and doing the right thing", but rather, a particular touch of God's favour?

What if we are commanded to give not because it's the right thing to do, but because there's something unfathomably wonderful in it for us, from God, that cannot be received any other way?

I saw some kids physically receive a blessing from God last weekend.

The smallest part of it was knowing their efforts raised $2,005 for Turn The Tide kids in Malawi.

The larger portion? We may have to wait until they can articulate it, but I have a suspicion the biggest blessing may only be seen in the type of adults they become.

Kids Helping Kids. The tide being turned in both directions, meeting in the middle, through love.

P.S. If you have any fundraising ideas on how kids can help kids, I would love to hear from you!

Orphans & Widows: Fagesi Sandalamu

So in our little village where Turn The Tide works, there are these children who have no parents, and there are these widows and older women who have no children. 

Hmmm. Orphans and widows. It has a bit of a familiar ring to it, doesn’t it? As in words from the Bible, telling us to care for each of these needy groups?

What to do? With few funds but a lot of creative thinking, we decided to try out matching an older woman/widow who was alone with each of our child-headed households. The widow would be provided with food and some sustenance themselves, and they would be responsible for being mentors to the children, popping in regularly to see if everything is alright; offering a listening ear and advice. It seemed like a good plan - putting needy hearts in one another’s arms.

Fagesi Sandalamu is one of those older women without a husband or family to help take care of her. She was born in 1953. She is not quite sure of the day or month, but she remembers she was born on a Monday. 

Monday’s child, the old nursery rhyme tells us, is fair of face. 

And even at age 61, Fagesi’s face is smooth, clear and lovely. 

It belies the unloveliness of the world in which she grew up.

There was a lot of bloodshed in Malawi at that time. 1953 was at the heart of the long war for independance in Malawi - then known as  Nyasaland and ruled by the British. The country was in turmoil.

There was a lot of unloveliness in Fagesi’s family when she was born. They lived in the bush, and Fagesi was the second of 10 children born by one of the many wives of her father.  It has been estimated that nearly one in five women in Malawi live in polygamous relationships.

There was unloveliness in how Fagesi was treated. The lot of a woman is a difficult one in a polygamous family, but the lot of a woman born lame is almost unimaginably harsh. Marginalized and without much value to her family, Fagesi depended on her mother.

When her mother died of cerebral malaria, Fagesi learned to depend on the small handouts from her father and brothers and sisters.

“I could not do a lot on my own to earn a living because I am disabled,” she explains.

“Some relief showered on my life when I was 33 and a missionary helped me, and taught me sewing and then gave me my own machine.” 

Life improved for her over the next 17 years as she became quite an accomplished tailor. But then, her Father died, and one by one, her siblings got ill and died also. “This is one of my most evil memories,” she says, “because I was directly helped by them.” She was forced to sell the sewing machine to for funds to help her take care of her sibling’s children and grandchildren.

Some of Turn The Tide’s Board members in the village spoke with Fagesi to see how the program is working for her.

“My life has been so challenging, …. with the coming of (Turn The Tide), …I can see tomorrow. We would like to appreciate all (you) are doing for us and pray for more of (your) presence and support.”

Well, Fagesi, we appreciate you too. 

And with God’s help, you just may start seeing more of our presence there too - but that’s for another exciting blog post!

Why Home is Better than an Orphanage

I have people ask me why don't I support an existing orphanage and encourage the child-headed households we care for to, for want of better words, "turn themselves in" to the orphanage?

Afterall, they'd get two or three square meals a day at an orphanage without having to scrape the floor for the market for it, wouldn't they?
They could go to school.
They'd get clothes.
Medical attention when they needed it.

Wouldn't they?

Perhaps. And perhaps not.

I have asked myself the same questions. Why give these kids what will only empower them to be mini-adults instead of letting them just be kids and making a way for someone else be the adult in their lives? Why let them have this responsibility when they don't have to?

I know. I know. I wish that I could read each one of these kids a story every night and tuck them into bed. Or have someone else tuck them into bed. And have someone else make the hard decisions for them. I wish with all my heart they could be just kids. And that they could be loved and cherished and valued for who they are.

The hard truth, in Africa at least, is that not all is as it is supposed to be. Not all orphanages do as you would hope they do. Not all homes for kids with no homes are better than nothing.

On my last visit to Malawi, this very matter was settled in my mind with great conviction. There are many, many orphans in the area around Sorgen, where we focus our work. In fact, my first port of call in any visit is to the Good News Children's Home. It's where I stay while I visit.

This last visit, I very deliberately observed the state of wellbeing of the children we support through Turn the Tide and compared them to the children living in the orphanage. This is what I noticed:

- Turn The Tide children look both cleaner and healthier than the children living in the orphanage.
- Their clothing is not perfect, but they are not wearing rags like some of the children I see at the orphanage. It is heartbreaking to see children wearing clothes that are more holes than clothes.
- The children we support and who are staying in their own homes have their own space; their own sense of belonging to something and they are part of their community. Children in the orphanage belong to no one and have nothing that is their own. Even the connection with family they may have had in the past is taken from them. We all need to belong and to know where we come from. This identity, I believe, remains intact through our support of these children.

Turn The Tide children also maintain contact with family, however distant, when they live in their own homes. Grandparents who may be too frail to take full responsibility for day-to-day care of children still may visit. If these children were in an orphanage, these visits almost certainly would not take place, and that connection would be lost.

My concern for our children, however, was that Turn The Tide address the need for not only their day-to-day supplies, but their day-to-day supervision.

I wanted to find a way where a responsible adult could assist our children with daily chores, with emotional support, and with the necessary encouragement to attend school. There are almost as many elderly widows in this community as there are orphans. I'll put it this way: the reason has something to do with low expectations of the faithfulness of men/husbands, and the consequences of their choices, resulting in shorter lifespans.

Knowing this, I put forward the idea to our active board in the area to attach a vulnerable widow or grandmother from the community to each of the child-headed families. This would allow both children and the widows to be physically supported with necessities, and hopefully, their relationships would develop into emotionally mutually supportive ones.

It's not a science, this thing of helping orphans and widows. It's not. Although I have "studied" it in one sense through my masters degree, there are so many variables in our one town in Malawi alone that at times, you have to throw away the books and simply try to be as creative as the situation requires.

The need is so huge it overwhelms me many times. But you know what, for these "ones", we have made a difference, you and I. And for that, I am so grateful.

They say it's your birthday....

I had a fabulous birthday.

Mostly, I always have a fabulous birthday.

You know why? Because I have a family.

I have a family, and I have friends that are family. Although my blood-family are thousands of miles away from me, they show me they love me by showering me with gifts, cards, emails, phone calls and flowers on my birthday. My family of friends here in South Africa do much the same. It's wonderful. It makes me feel special. Like I matter. Like my life means something.

I guess this might be a cultural thing.

Where you grew up, were birthdays a big thing? Perhaps this is a creation of the Western world to sell more cards? I don't know.

I tell you what I do know: when it's my birthday, I feel loved.

I asked these beautiful family and friends-who-are-family if, instead of showering gifts on me for my birthday this year, if they would consider showering any money they would have spent on my kids instead. On the kids we support through Turn The Tide. No, they are not "mine", but these kids were born in my heart, if not my body, and I will continue to invest in their souls and spirits as long as God gives me breath.

And, you lovely people, you did. You showered my kids with blessing. With almost £400 worth of blessing, in fact.
When I know that it takes £14 a month for one of these little ones to survive and thrive, it brings me great joy to share my birthday blessings with them.

Birthday blessings are in short supply in that place. By "that place", of course, I mean in "poverty". When you have nothing to give and no birth date that you know of, there is little reason to celebrate another person, you know?

Christopher's was the very first family I met those years ago in Malawi. In the look Christopher's eyes gave me, Turn The Tide was born. Christopher, Limbonazi and Milka had never had one birthday.

In fact, they can barely work out how old they are. They know vaguely they must be kind of around the age of 10,13 and 15, but a newborn baby in this village of Malawi is sometimes not the source of joy to their parents that it is to angels. They often don't mark the day, perhaps because they would rather concentrate on working out how to feed that extra mouth.

On my last visit, we worked out it was around the time Limbonazi should be having a birthday. And it was such a joy to help him celebrate the beauty and reality and thanksgiving of his life. I loved him so much in those moments. I imagine it has something to do with the Father's heart in mine, beating for love of Limbonazi also.

Celebrating Limbonazi - His 'first' bottle of Fanta

Limbonazi - A beautiful boy with a beautiful heart

And as I geared up to celebrate my Saviour on His birthday this year, I imagined I could hear his heart saying "No, not for me. Share something you would reserve for me with one of the little ones I love. The cattle on a thousand hills are mine. What you would give to me, lavish on them. Please."

I would add my plea to his. I love them so much.