Wednesday Post

Wednesday, 7th June.

Today was a very different day. Because the sunset is so early and the evenings seem to go by very slowly we were in bed just after nine and as a result I woke up about 4.30 and didn’t really sleep much after. So I was up early watching the sunrise from the veranda wrapped up in my fleece.

We went to the Ark intending to speak to George and to write some letters for him. George showed us around the Ark and we met some of the Aunties who look after the children and all the children under school age – there are quite a few. We met the infamous Jimmy and Stephen who had given Bex so little peace last year. Then George and Anne Marie took us on a tour of the Rehoboth E block. How can you describe such an experience. Bex had videoed a visit there but the reality is quite overwhelming. Everywhere you look there is such poverty and sickness, drunkenness and an overwhelming sense of people merely existing with no purpose or goal. There is no electricity or running water and no toilets. Beer houses are everywhere selling home made alcohol which is often so impure as to cause illnesses. There is a kind of hopelessness about the place which is almost indescribable. Children play in the trash and the houses consist largely of rusted metal pieces from bits of car to flattened cans and salvaged pieces of rusted roofing. It is in this block that George and Anne Marie and their helpers under the auspices of Christ’s Hope International go twice a week with soup and bread for those who are suffering from illnesses, mainly AIDS. We called to speak to Jonas, who a year ago was nothing but skin and bones and a body covered in sores. Now after care and much prayer Jonas’s health has improved. It is hard to believe that Jonas is just 53 years old. Then we spent some time with Hans who is just reaching the end of treatment for tuberculosis. When Anne Marie first visited him he was living in a ramshackle hut, it was raining and the water was pouring in. He was sitting covered only by an old plastic sheet. George constructed a new shelter for him out of salvaged roofing sheets and welded together a bedstead. He keeps his new home neatly ordered – not that he has much – but his blankets neatly folded and everything tidy. His only light is a small stump of candle. Through Anne Marie he apologised that because he had run out of soap he felt ashamed that he had not been able to wash today. We were almost brought to tears as we reassured him that it made not the slightest difference. He continues to have heart and lung problems and even with the aid of a stick cannot walk very far.

George tells me that antiretroviral treatment is available and HIV and AIDS sufferers are able to get treatment at the clinics set up in the block. But to a certain extend even HIV / AIDS is a symptom of the relentless poverty induced by lack of employment and the dead end hopelessness that the resulting poverty brings. It is to these people, the hopeless and helpless that George and Anne Marie have been called. They are truly special people.

We arrived back at the Ark to find some American volunteers arrived from Keetmanshoop and joined them for lunch. After lunch Anne Marie rang the local council official who has been dealing with the application for a license to pump water from the garden project bore hole. There has been a long delay for some reason. He told her to bring a letter to his office regarding the situation. I wrote the letter and we decided to take it personally to the Town Council office. We were able to speak to the official directly and he has assured us that if we return to his office just before twelve tomorrow (Thurs) we will have an answer. So we are praying hard that the answer will be positive and that soon water will be flowing from the borehole into the waiting water tanks. Also we have been able to order some truck loads of manure which will come to Reo Evergreen on Friday and were also able to pick up some bags of fertilizer from the local agricultural merchants. This will enable work to continue on getting the newly dug trenches ready for planting once the winter is over. Hopefully this will mean something like four to five times the land under cultivation next season and if the good Doctor Singogo is right (and he’s been right so far) the ground will become easier to cultivate as they expand the area of the garden.

The garden is so central to George’s vision of creating employment and provision that it is vital that it succeeds. Only last year Bex visited a newly formed cooperative which had received massive funding to establish a similar project. It had everything – the best piece of land, a borehole, solar powered pumps to pump the water to the holding tanks and an initial hectare of land under cultivation and irrigation. It was even opened by the minister of agriculture. We visited today and even taking into consideration the fact that it is winter the place is in a pitiful state. One man is left of the original twenty five people who formed the cooperative. It is a sad situation.

Reo Evergreen were given the worse piece of ground imaginable – much of it a rubbish dump and even now some of it is covered with deep holes and rubbish. But with prayer and great courage and hard labour the ground has been transformed. As Dr Singogo told Sian, “The council gave them a lemon, but look what wonderful lemonade they have made with it.”

So back to the lake and a relaxing evening but with memories of Block E never far from the surface and much prayer that the Lord will make it possible for the borehole to soon be in production. We appreciate the prayers of all who read this.