News from Malawi

We just got the most wonderful email from Malawi with pictures of kids receiving their food supplies, toothbrushes and other necessities, and a detailed budget of expenses.

Does it not amaze you as it does me that Turn the Tide feeds, educates and provides basic household, medical and schooling necessities for 39 orphans and 11 widows for three months for just GBP379.61 ($US577.83)?

I think I spend more than that on my 12 family members just for Christmas. And that's not food! That's extras. Cards, wrapping, gifts they may or may not even like!

But in Malawi, this same amount is making 39 children into healthy, educated, contributing world citizens.

We had to make some changes with the administration of food and necessities for our kids this year. After much prayer, a pretty terrific team of people from villages near Sorgen (the village our kids are from) agreed to take over the management on the ground. This team had already been working together for a while, going from village to village evangelizing, helping those in need and loving those needing loving.

Led by a man named Gift (his story is as meaningful as his name), who was himself once an orphan, our kids are now being cared for better than ever. I say the word "kids" ..... and yet this year, Christopher, the boy who kind of started this whole story, finished high school and will be starting university. Am I the only one amazed?

I was in Malawi this summer, and it was so terrific to see everyone. I could just eat up every one of these kids. They make me so proud, and I am so grateful, truly grateful to be part of this ministry.

And yet, to be honest, not every story is going the way I would write it. I rode in a rattle-trap bus for hours to the hospital with one, as she recovered from a serious infection after childbirth. Yes, childbirth. A child went through childbirth. In our world, 16 is a child. In theirs, a 16 year old is ..... ready for the business of being a woman. My heart breaks. The journey for a poor girl in a poor village in Africa is more complicated than we Westerners can comprehend.

Yet even in this situation there is hope. I was asked to name and dedicate that baby, and as her mother received treatment in hospital, I rocked baby Grace, and with tears pouring down my face, prayed and prayed and prayed over her sweet little head.

Among the new team working with our kids on the ground is a fantastic woman named Esnet. She is educated, articulate, a mother herself and passionate about empowering Malawi's women and girls. Esnet assured me she will visit with Chikonde often and help her with this new task of raising a daughter.

 With all these things going on, you can understand why I sometimes find it difficult living and working back in the UK. My heart has been captured by some sweet little people in Malawi and I long to see them more than once or twice a year. However, I don't need to visit to make sure they eat and get an education! That you and I are doing together from afar.

Thanks to you and your support in this work, some pretty great kids are getting a pretty great  chance to live life free from poverty.

 Thank you for filling their stomachs, and my heart.

Michelle

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.

Meet Belita

I'd love to introduce you to a few of "our" children. When you see a whole bunch of faces, even poor faces, it's easy to tune out - there's so "many", it's overwhelming. You feel like you can't even begin to touch the need. But when you meet the "one" .... well, that's when futures can be changed forever. Theirs and yours.

This is Belita Emmanuel.

She looks around 16, doesn't she?

She's 12 years old.
She has one younger sister. Her name is Alice. Both of Belita's parents died four years ago. If your maths is as good as mine, you will understand this means Belita was violently catapulted out of childhood at the ripe old age of 8.

At age 8, this beautiful child of God became the sole provider for her little sister and herself.

We don't know for sure, but given the statistics of the village, we believe both her parents died of AIDS.

What does an 8 year old do to make sure she and her sister eat?

I can tell you what they don't do: they don't go to school.
They don't go to the child welfare agency and ask to be fostered out to another family.
They don't get a cheque each week for disability.

What they do is beg. And pray and pray and pray.

When the men are short of labourers in the field, they use 8 year old girls to help. When there is work, there might be a few dollars for a week to buy food. Probably not enough for clothes, but you can't eat clothes.

The Lord has his eyes on the sparrow, and He has his eyes on Belita. The church Turn The Tide works with was trying hard to help Belita and her sister. But the church is small, everyone in it is fighting their own battle with poverty. It was a joy to bear some of that burden.

Belita's sister Alice

Today, Belita is going to school. She's in grade 5 and working hard. Her sister Alice is also in school. Life is not perfect, but it's easier. And we praise God for letting us be even being a little bit a part of that. We look forward to seeing how He will provide for and use Belita in the future. Her dreams are still alive - she may have been powerless when he parents died, but this brave little girl is now determined to be a doctor. She couldn't save her own, but maybe one day she will save someone else's parents.

Let's start at the very beginning ...

Turn the Tide was launched in August 2011. But it's much older than that in my heart. Can I share it?
I am Michelle. For several years I worked in the UK as a primary school teacher. In August 2006, I attended a camp run by my church. During that camp God gave me a vision – to help those who were living in poverty, especially women and children. 

During the weeks that followed, I couldn’t get the words ‘Turn the Tide’ out of my head. I researched what this phrase meant and was blown away by the definition I found:
Turn the Tide: To cause a complete reversal of the circumstances, especially from one extreme to another.

This description resonated loudly in my heart. This was my vision – to help cause a complete change in the lives of people living in extreme poverty.

Baby Steps 
Just two years later, I found myself profoundly dissatisfied. I was teaching but not fulfilled. So I embarked on a journey which would change the course of my life. Recognising my passion was to work in development, I pushed on a number of doors. After a process of elimination and despite feelings of inadequacy, I began a Masters in Social Development and Sustainable Livelihoods. 

At which point my eyes are opened
In 2009, I was half way through my Masters. Through a contact, I spent five weeks in Blantyre, Malawi researching the vulnerabilities and coping strategies of street children. My eyes were opened and my heart broken as I interviewed, hugged and loved these beautiful children who are seen by their fellow countrymen as the lowest of society. 

These children, I was to discover, were not all from the city. Many of them were orphans from rural parts of Malawi. When their parents had died, they had left desperate living conditions in their villages and come to the cities in hope of a better life. 

This is not what they found. Street life is harsh. Far from opportunity, these children found themselves in situations far worse than any they left in their villages. But with no money to return, they become vulnerable to sexual and physical abuse, drug use, sickness and hostility. Their city of dreams becomes a waking nightmare.

I wanted to visit a rural Malawi to see where these children came from. I went with a Pastor to his home village, 3 hours south of Blantyre towards Nsanje. 

It was an experience seared in my heart. I spent the night in the rural village of Sorgen, sleeping in a hut with the bats and cockroaches for company. The ‘toilet’ was a hole in the ground. Over the course of two days I was introduced to several families. Not families like you and I know. These were families of young children.

The very idea of ‘Child Headed Families’ shocked me. I witnessed children as young as eight years old attempting to care for, provide for and be the parent for their baby brothers and sisters. This was the place those street children started out. I could see why it would happen. These kids were already desperate. The city offered them a chance. The heartbreak is, it's a false chance.

Jesus is real
I fought back my tears constantly. But then I came to one family and my heart couldn't withstand the pressure. A family of three children – Christopher, who at the time was just 12 years old, Limbonazo, 9 and Milka, 6. 

Christopher

They had been caring for themselves for 2 years. Their parents had died of AIDS. Christopher, only 10, had nursed his parents until their death. Since then, he had been both mother and father to his brother and sister. He had ambitions of one day becoming a doctor but the chances of that were slim. His days were spent fetching wood and water and searching for food. As we spoke, he was cooking maize – a common, cheap source of carbohydrate grown in many parts of Africa. They had found the maize in the market on the floor at the end of the day. They had swept it up, sifted out the dirt, and this was the only meal they would have today.

The effort of sourcing food meant they did not attend school. And even if they had wanted to, it was next to impossible for them to come up with the money to get school uniform, and pay school fees, however small those fees might be.

I think you would have done the same thing: I held Christopher's hands and told him that from that day forward I was making a promise to him that I would provide his family with food.
I told him I would by pay for their school fees, uniforms and equipment. 

What Christopher said next started Turn The Tide in earnest. Shaking his head and with tears in his eyes he said "But this only happens in my dream. Now I know that Jesus is real”. 

The translator turned to me and said, “Today these children’s lives have turned around”. 
I was slow to get the connection, but the words ‘turned around’ played over in my head.
Finally I got it -  turned around! Turn the Tide! This was it!

I left that place knowing that somehow, some way, I would be back and when I did, it would not be just to say Hi to this one family but to give a hope and a future to other Child Headed Families as well.

Limbonazo and Milka

The dream becomes real
It took 3 years, but in July 2011, I returned to Malawi. The school where I had been teaching in the UK had run a fundraising week generating almost £1500. I had done a lot of personal fundraising. I didn't really have a plan for the long term; but I had a real conviction that once I started, the rest of what we needed would come. I cannot put into words the feeling of seeing a dream become a reality.

That trip, working with a small church in the village who would administer the funds, we selected the first seven families Turn The Tide would support. Twenty one children living in the most vulnerable of circumstances were identified. They sang as they were given the assurance of being able to attend school. Their frowns turned to smiles as the understanding of what was being provided for them sunk in. My heart overflowed.

On that first day, this was my parting image: As the sun was setting children with arms laden with school equipment, toiletries, fish and beans and huge bags of maize on their heads walked back to their homes. However, it was their faces that carried the most beautiful load of all - huge smiles. As I watched them, my heart also felt full; full of purpose and deep love for these 21 children.

Two years on: orphans AND widows
Two years later, in May 2013, I returned to visit. I was thrilled to see how healthy "my" children looked and to discover how well they were doing at school. The local church has done a beautiful job at making sure all the funds we send have reach the children on a daily basis. 

The children who started it all - Libonazi, Christopher and Milka.

Celebrating Libonazi's birthday on 2nd May - the first one he has ever celebrated.

Turn the Tide really was making a difference. We took another step of faith and started supporting 4 more families. Then at the suggestion of the church elders, we attached elderly widows to each family to not only support the widows themselves, but to encourage the children. 

To date Turn the Tide supports 39 children and 11 elderly widows in the village of Sorgen, Malawi. 

If there is one thing I am convinced of, it is that this is not the end.