Dear Friends,
This month we would like to honour and appreciate two very special people who have come alongside us in ABC Ministry and helped us so much with finances over the years: Dr Larry and Joyce Sandberg. We know that without their love and support, ABC Ministry would have shut down a long time ago. We cannot express enough, our gratitude for their ongoing love, care, prayers and support. ABC Ministry is under the umbrella of Lamb Orphanage in the USA, of which Dr Larry and Joyce are the founder members. Please pray for this amazing couple as they continue to raise support and awareness for our babies in our home and for the orphan situation in Swaziland.
We have had another busy month of birthdays. September saw Collin celebrating his 20th birthday on the 1st, Lucy celebrating her 3rd birthday on the 8th, Banele his 4th birthday on the 9th and Poppy turned 1 year old on the 15th.
We are sad to report that Collin had been giving us some behaviour problems for a couple of weeks and it became so unpleasant in the home, that he was moved out of the home permanently this time. He has moved in with his cousin Andrew, who rents a room up the road from us. We are helping them by paying their room rent every month as long as Collin continues to live with Andrew. Collin is still attending school and has realised that he needs to get his education. He remains clean and off the drugs and has told us that he will never do drugs again. We continue to help Collin as much as we can but he is no longer under ABC Ministry.
Poppy on her 1st birthday
On the 7th Robyn attended a workshop on policy changing for theDevelopment of a Social Protection System for children in alternative care and especially early childhood development, held by the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office at the Swazi Sun. It is exciting to see how change for the better, concerning our children, is happening in our country.
Schools opened again on the 11th for the 3rd and final term of the year. Lozi received her 2nd term report and was
disappionted as she had not done as well as she had expected to do. She has hit the books hard as it was a wake-up
call to her that her school years are now drawing to an end and these coming final exams will determine her future. The teachers then all went on strike for the week of 17th – 21st so the children all had an extra week at home. It is a crutial time for our children as they all prepare for their final exams which starts next month and the teachers are ongoing striking for pay!
Prince has settled in well and, apart from a few bad behaviours in the beginning, is now a happy and secure 3 year old. We did a hearing test on him as social welfare felt there may be problems with his hearing but everything came up at 100%. He is learning English and fitting in well with the other children. It always amazes us that these children never ask for their mothers, which shows us how neglected these littles one have been. After 1 week of being with us, Prince ran to Robyn, hugged her legs and exclaimed, “Makewami” which means: “my mother”.
We took a day trip to Pretoria on the 19th to fetch our passports and were shocked that we did not get the visas as we hoped we would. We were very disappointed that our 1st application for visas to the UK were denied on the ‘lack of evidence that we would return back to Swaziland after our visit.’ We then reapplied and have handed in all our extra documentation on the 28th, so we had another day trip to Pretoria and we now wait for the final decision to be made.
Gerry has worked hard on the roof over the nursery room and kitchen verandas and it has made a huge difference to cooling these two rooms from the hot, African, afternoon sun. Thank you to World Missions, UK, for making this possible and for supplying the finances for this project, enabling us to put up this much needed veranda roof.
Sam helping Gerry put up the roof over the nursery
We are so grateful to all who help us and donate towards this work with the babies, making it possible for us to continue to rescue and help more babies and toddlers who are in needc creating a safe haven for them in our home. Thank you to everyone for all your prayers, support, love and encouragement, without which we would not survive.
God bless you all
Gerry & Robyn
Prince, Isaac, Emily, Lucy, Patrick and Banele – the ABC Gang!
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