We celebrated Gerry’s 75th birthday on the 3rd, with most of our grown-up children joining us on the 2nd for a birthday braai. It was lovely having all of them with us and to spend special time all together for the day. Lozi baked him a beautiful birthday cake and Florence helped with the cake decorations. Also on the 3rd, we won our court case with Rose, allowing us to continue to stay in this rented house without the threat of an eviction for the time being. This has been one of the main reasons why we are trying desperately to get the new ABC Home built and to move into it, so as to get away from Rose and all the hassles that she has caused us and ABC over these past 12 years.
Then, on the 4th, we were evicted from our new land and buildings. All further building has been put on hold while this land dispute is being solved. Our land lawyer is dealing with the matter and so is our acting Chief, Princess Salaphi, who confirmed that they are also working on this ‘in-house’ fight over the chiefdom, which we are somehow caught up in. The crazy thing is that our GMA building construction company has not been evicted but they have put the whole building construction on hold until it is all sorted out. In the meantime, all the GMA equipment and building materials are still on the land and they have security guards on duty 24/7, our Angus being one of the security guards, to make sure that the property is safe.
As our 2 aunties and their 5 children, were evicted from the new buildings, we had to remove everything instantly under the watchful eye of the court sheriff and his men and find alternative accommodation for them. Aunty Tema and her 3 children moved into a rented room next door to us (that had been rented for her brother) and Aunty Philile and her baby are now sleeping on a spare bed in our lounge. Luckily, Philile started her annual leave on the 10th, so was away for most of this month. Aunty Thulile returned to work on the 18th, and then Treasure started her annual leave on the 27th.
This has been a busy birthday month for us as Lozi celebrated her birthday on the 13th, Dominique on the 14th, our little Lydia on the 18th and Sam on the 30th. During the last week of March, we ran out of funding and Robyn made an appeal for help for baby milk formula. Thank you to everyone who responded and helped us with donations of tins of milk for our babies. We appreciate the help and if you would like to continue to help us by donating milk for our babies, it would be greatly appreciated.
The babies are all growing well and have enjoyed the summer months and playing outdoors. Little Garth is now smiling and making lots of baby sounds, the twins, Peter and John who are now 16 months old, are developing nicely with little John taking his first steps on the 22nd. Peter is now off the oxygen for most of the days but still has the oxygen at night while he is sleeping. He is also enjoying the Jolly Jumper and getting stronger all the time. Twins, Timmy and Reese are now crawling all over and Timmy is pulling himself up to stand against the furniture.
An amazing thing happened on the 22nd, in the middle of all these land issues, a mother sheep gave birth to her baby lamb on our new land just outside of Gerry’s new workshop. There are mostly goats in our area, there were no other sheep around, and we are far from all other homesteads plus lambs are normally born in Spring and not Autumn. We were really blessed by this and took it as a sign that God is working all things out to His glory and that many more little ‘lambs’ will find their way into the new ABC Home.
On the 31st, Robyn had the privilege of a meeting with our Eswatini Deputy Prime Minister, the Honourable Madam Thuli Dladla, and to introduce ABC Ministry and ourselves to her. She was very interested in all we are doing and is willing to help us with our land dispute as well and, even though Robyn didn’t mention it to her, she knew all about it and asked after it.
Prayer Requests: Nothing changes without prayer!
- Please give thanks to the Lord for His continual provision for the baby home
- Please give thanks to God for all that He is doing in ABC!
Our words cannot express our gratitude to everyone who has supported us, who prays for us and encourages us to keep on going. We are extremely grateful to everyone and appreciate all that everyone does to assist us with the running of the ABC baby home. Without you, we cannot survive. THANK YOU! - Please continue to pray for enough funding for the daily running of the baby home. With the constant increase in prices of everything, it is costing us a lot to run the home every month.
- Please pray for our land and the court issues. We need this land dispute to finally be put to rest so that we can continue to build the new, permanent and safe home for our babies, and also for us to complete the new home as soon as possible.
- Please continue to pray for good homes to be found for our babies who need to move from our home once they turn 2 years old. We have 4 older ones that need to move to more permanent homes.
God Bless You
Robyn & Gerry
For anyone who would like to donate towards the building fund, can please do so through
www.thelamborphanage.org OR can contact us through our contact page OR email us for our banking details directly.
