Diamonds in the Dust, Shirley Tucker

Shirley Tucker, past volunteer with the Forward Education afterschool program in Masoyi, has published a tale about a woman's encounter with African youth.

Shirley is a compassionate and caring woman with a mother's heart for the orphaned. The youth loved her and she gained their trust easily. It wasn't long before they were sharing their complicated lives with her. I haven't read the book yet but have no doubt that this fictional novel is more real then not. Their stories deserve to be told and heard.

Anyone who has spent time with these youth will attest that, like diamonds under pressure and heat transform from black coal to glittering clear crystals, these youth who have gone through great adversity and pain, are sparkling gems on this earth.

Buried in the backrooms of poor communities, these youth are truly our "diamonds in the dust," and worth a lifetime of searching for and discovering them.

This is My Story - Elvis

Elvis Mahlanya, a self-portrait

Originally this story appeared on our Hands at Work newsroom, this is the story of Elvis Mahlanya, 22 years old and a former Forward Education student, currently finishing his degree in Social Work. Elvis shares his story below as only he can tell it.

No one can tell this, only me. I am Elvis, the eldest son of the late Sinah Mahlanya who was basically a single parent. She passed away in 2004 when I was just 15-years-old. In her absence I had to take over responsibility for my younger brother, Africa, who was just 13 and my sister Tebogo who was just 6 years old. I had to make sure that I could address their needs all by myself. Everything from fetching water down by the river and providing food for us became my responsibility. Most of the time I had to ask help from my family members or friends. I remember being scolded and shouted at by my own uncle as I tried to advocate for my brother who needed school shoes. His were torn in such a way that he could not wear them. Some days he just went to school barefoot.

It was painful for me because I had nothing to offer my siblings other than speaking on behalf of their needs. I used to sometimes think I should drop out of school and go to work to provide for my siblings, but I was under-aged and could not. I used to cry a lot because I failed to meet my siblings’ needs, especially when we would go to bed hungry.

When my mother passed away my siblings and I got involved in a project right away in Masoyi called the Masoyi Home-Based Care. It took a few months before we got assistance from the care workers because they needed to make assessments. (Hands at Work grew out of the successful model of support and development implemented through the Masoyi Home-Based Care project outside of White River). Masoyi Home-Based Care runs a pre-school and creche for toddlers. They provide love and care for the very young and it allows older siblings, like me, to remain in school. I met people from Hands at Work through Masoyi and I was part and parcel of the project’s events and programmes. I was one of the key leaders in the youth program that was initiated by Levy Mwenda from Zambia. He is one of the good people I’ve met in my life. He nurtured me through spiritual life and developed my reasoning capacity.

An untroubled Elvis (front) and friends from the Forward EducationI remember earlier when the youth programme was in the initial stages, we were doing nothing but just talking to one another, sharing our challenges and our future in general. I remember one day Levy said to me, "Don’t worry about today, worry about tomorrow... Don’t be like a rat that runs around in a basin looking for a space to get out but not looking up where there is a space. There is a future here." Those words have stuck in my mind for years now. Through my participation in the youth programme, I was fortunate enough to be one of those who are chosen to go [graduate] the Forward Education programme, class of 2008. It was a six-month bridging programme designed to strengthen us to make the step to successful university studies. Kristal and Darryl [long-term volunteers with Hands at Work] were my mentors at the Forward Education programme. They empowered me with creative thinking skills, independent work habits, strong written communication skills, exposed and open minds, and a strong character. They were such a blessing to me and my life in general. “No problem” was a life statement in our class initiated by Darryl. We were coached to value life as it and not worry at all because God is with us.

Forward Education students doing homework at Masoyi Home-Based CareForward Education helped me to see life with an eagle eye. I thought I was nothing and was going nowhere since my mother had passed on. Forward Education raised my expectations, it took me straight to the university, it payed my registration, my transportation, my meal, my accommodation and so on. As I am writing now, I am doing my third year in of a Bachelor of Arts degree in Youth in Development, which is more less Social Work. My tuition, accommodation, food and books are now being funded by the Department of Social Development in Mpumalanga and the Forward Education programme through Hands at Work takes care of my other needs including food, transport, academic tours, my health and any financial issues that might crop up.

Due to my good relationship with my mentor, Levy, I had an opportunity to visit Oshoek [a very poor area in northeastern South Africa near the border with Swaziland where Hands at Work has recently started working] as part of my practical education or exposure on what I’m learning here. Life in Oshoek is tough, trust me. One can smell poverty from a distance. The environment is dry, no green trees, bare soil and poor soil for crops plantation. The people of Oshoek are very poor. 92% of their houses are built with mud and they are in a dismal form. Schools are far away from where people live. They share drinking water with cattle and goats. They have to walk for a mile to fetch water. We visited a couple of households headed by children. I met a young boy, just 15. He looks after the house and his young sister. He wore torn clothes. [When I saw him] I had a flash back, remembering the toughest time in my childhood. I had people to shout to for help, as for him it is tough because his family members stays in Swaziland and he doesn’t have an identity document. In this case, he can’t apply for a passport or any grants from the government. He is just by himself. Nomsa  [a community coordinator in Swaziland] and her crew are trying their level best to meet the children’s needs. The only need they can fully address is motivating children. They just motivate them to remain in school and focus on their studies, but they’ve got nothing tangible to offer. Children are suffering in Oshoek, hunger is literally killing them. The children are at high risk of participating in criminal activities, such as prostitution and theft as there is a border nearby. I also predict a high rate of teenage pregnancy if an intervention is not implemented on time.

My background and present situation proves that I am an example of leadership development. I see myself in a centre for rural development and poverty eradication in South Africa. With my experience working with people from different walks of life, combined with my observation that there is a strong need for a person like me to participate in developing or empowering others, this is where I believe I will be used. With the degree that I am going to hold within a year from now, I am going to have access to all the governmental institutions, advocating my people’s needs. I am an instrument for change in South Africa with the help of the Lord, my Almighty.

For her

Please help bring hope back to Gertrude's family who have experienced a lot of hardships in their short lives and now are battling to find a place to lay their heads at night. Help me to build a home for them by giving through CanadaHelps.

Hi friends, it has been a long time since I last wrote, I appologise. We are doing very well. We spent the first half of the year traveling and now we settled back in to our home in South Africa. I actually just finished unpacking my suitcase for the first time since November last year! We have seen so much and been so impacted this year already. Some day I will blog more about it but for now I really just wanted to plead for your support for this struggling family in Masoyi, South Africa.

Many of you read my last blog about Gertrude. I'm sad to say that the situation for her family has not improved. Her two youngest brothers are struggling to finish school and are daily facing rejection and fear of being thrown out of their relatives home.

Find out here how you can help by giving. 

I'm turning 30 this week, so I gave $300 to Gertrude's home and I'm challenging 10 of my friends to do the same, and 30 of you to give $30.

If you want to stay up to date with the progress of this project or just find out more information about the family and thier situation then join our cause on facebook.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and for just generally supporting us. I promise next time it won't be so long till I write!

Remembering Gertrude

I met Gertrude for the first time last year in a corrugated little shack. It was a warm day in July but she was bundled up in an oversized coat as if to keep the cold and the harsh reality of life out.

Her cough echoed against the tin walls. She had a dead surrendered look in her eyes, staring off in to the not-so-far distance. I could almost see the reel of life playing out in front of her: mother dead, father left, 2 kids to care for that aren’t hers to care for, but they are. Sick, deathly sick. No food, no income, not wanted by anyone.

As she opened up to share her story with us, her eyes began to quiver, and soon her hand was shaking, wiping the tears from her face. Her story was just as I thought. I wish it hadn’t been. I wish that Gertrude had a different story.

Her wails to God still echo in my mind.

I had never been in the presence of such honesty, such genuine humanity, grief and pain, dependence and faith mixed together. That day I felt God’s heart break.

The last time I visited Gertrude, she was staying with her sick Grandmother. Adolescent girls and babies floated in and out of the dark hall through our meeting. Distressed, she and her grandmother cried out together to their God, first using words, then just sobs and wails. There was an eerie stillness in the air as they tried to compose themselves before we left.

Gertrude died a year later in the same week as her grandmother. Together they left Gertrude’s 2 brothers, 14 and 17, and 16 year old sister with a baby of her own, a handful of young cousins, 5 children under the age 2 and a deathly ill aunt—the only adult left in Gertrude’s grandmother’s house.

I believe that God’s heart was in pain as She watched Her child suffer. I believe that there was a sweet reunion the day that Gertrude passed in to the next life. I believe that even through the pain there was purpose in Gertrude’s short life. I believe God has a redemptive plan for this earth and that it begins with you and me. She made us in Her image, creators, like Her. She desires for us to make this world a more loving, more compassionate place for saints like Gertrude, and for people like you and me who easily loose their way and quickly default to our selfish ways. I have to believe for my friends, I believe for Gertrude.

Video with Gertrude

Song for Gertrude

Lynn on national television?

Remember this post?

Lynn with Joas & Luisa during filming of the show in Mozambique.

Canadian friends: Living Truth will be debuting these 2 shows featuring Hands at Work in Africa this weekend and next. They were shot while Lynn was with them in Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

Catch the show: check this flyer for channels and times or go to livingtruth.ca

Lynn was interviewed and could very possibly appear in one of them!

The Purple Dress

We were asked to stand in a line, still, eyes shut. He told us there might be people putting things on us—dressing us—but we weren’t allowed to move, weren’t allowed to say anything.

Little did I know how hard this request to stand still, stand still and just receive, would be.

He told us that no matter what we must accept what they were going to give to us. We must accept it so that they can receive their blessing.

An amazing 3 days lead up to this point. A group of Canadians, mostly newly graduated doctors—some of the most highly educated people in the world—together with a group of volunteers from a slum in Zambia—some too poor to pay the $6 a year to send their child to primary school. Two groups thrown together by God, serving each other, learning from each other, freely giving and freely receiving.

Click to read more ...

Where we come from...

You can use music when you are lonley,
where we come from ...

(he continues) ... but most of all, we use music to defuse tension,
where we come from.

Zimbabwean Jazz artist, Oliver Tuku, performs a poetic song that highlighting the loving and peaceful stance of Zimbabweans even in a tense political climate. Lynn took me on my 29th birthday. :)

Thank You!

Thank you Marc, Kalen, Dan, Brian, Marlene, Desi and Stan for moving our house for us! It's bad enough to move your own junk, but you willingly moved ours! At least it looks like you had one last party at our place. ;) Love you guys!

New Posts

Hi friends.

We wrote an update letter for all our supporters (that's you because you're reading this now!). It'll be up on the front page of our website for a little while.

Lynn is in Zimbabwe and Mozambique right now with a tv crew. We are very honored to have Living Truth choose us again for their annual charity. They received an unprecedented response last year to their tv shows on Hands at Work.

A very small privileged audience (just me) was following Lynn along in a series of text messages and I decided it was selfish to keep it to myself so I’ve posted an edited version (minus the cute names and personal stuff) on Lynn's blog.

And finally, I added our Cape Town photos. It is just as beautiful as everyone says it is!

Hunger

This is our moment.

Can you guess who this is? Inscription on cloth reads: "People of the world, this is our moment, this is our time. Hooray for the President." 

The best part: "Shine Shine" limousine below the knuckles that read "H O P E".

Also available in wrap skirts, table cloths, hand bags, head wraps, pillow cases...

And on the wall next to this display you'll see clocks with the faces of: Marilyn Monroe, Nelson Mandela, Bob Marley, and ...Obama, of course.

Living in Harmony

We arrived in South Africa to what looked like a jungle. January had been an unseasonably wet month: more rain had fallen on this soil in the first month than the average amount of rainfall for the first eight months. So everything was a well-watered-green and at full growth; quack grass on the side of the road measured higher than our car. It was an adventure walking to work each morning through the 400 meter puddle that once was my walking path. There was even a healthy layer of mold growing in the most unfortunate places in our house: I found earbuds in a drawer one day looking a little fuzzy, and a beautiful crucifix carving of Jesus we had hanging on our wall seemed to be growing a healthy head of hair!

Eventually the rain slowed and we were, once again, able to see our neighbor’s home after they cut the neglected “lawn” between us. And yet we still found ourselves learning to live in harmony with God’s creation here:

We usually have quite a number of little geckos living with us, but this week I walked in to find a lizard (bigger and much more ferocious-looking) sitting on our laundry bag. I let him be (mostly because I was a little scared of him). The following couple of nights he woke us up scurrying here or there. So after a little search party today we finally chased him out, back in to the jungle again.

We also had a few furry visitors come by this week while we weren’t home. We arrived home to the evidence: a trail of orange peels, a few knocked over items that had been sitting on our window sill, and an opening in the screen just big enough for a monkey’s arm to reach in and to the box of oranges that was so absent-mindedly left in their plain view.

We’ve had a special couple of weeks with my mom and dad, who stepped foot on African soil for the first time. Their visit made me feel more at peace about being here then I have ever felt before and still more homesick than ever too.

Somebody likes us

The last 7 flights, if you can believe it, we have either had spare seats beside us to stretch out on to or have been bumped up to a loftier class. On our flight to Nigeria we were put in first class: greeted with champagne, reclined in lazy-boys, given a full-size comforter and pillow and dined on a 5-course meal.

The last leg of our journey back to South Africa Lynn and I were hoping to get a little extra shut-eye since we were to arrive after 2 days travel late at night to then have to rent a car and drive to our campus, which was another 4 and a half hours away, in order to make it to an early morning meeting the next day. To our surprise we were once again placed in a nearly empty section of the plane. I stretched out over 4 seats and dozed in and out for almost the entire 10 hour flight. Lynn took half a sleeping pill and did the same.

Freedom for Everyone

I found myself a little wet-eyed watching the inauguration of America’s first African-American president yesterday. I even found myself, for the first time, wishing that I was an American.

Moved by the throws of Obama’s speech I started dreaming and putting my share of expectations on the shoulders of this new American President. And I know I’m not the only non-American to do so. On his shoulders are the hopes and dreams of Africans too. When we were in Nigeria we heard people in elated expectancy refer to Obama as “the fulfillment of our Saint Martin Luther King’s prophecy.”

I’ve seen first hand what the American government under the Bush administration has contributed to the fight against poverty and Aids on the ground in Africa and I’ve been impressed by the way in which they have quickly and skillfully deployed their resources. But despite this I still hope to see more from Obama. What I really hope to see is a shift in focus in this presidency from us to others—to raise the profile of the vulnerable: for the orphans and widows of society, for the poor and lonely. A new age of politics is what I hope to see.

Africa is tomorrow’s worst nightmare, it’s time to wake up to that. 6000 people dying of HIV/Aids every single day, millions of orphans. If America is going to be a world leader and act for the good and freedom of all then it needs to wake up to the reality of the war that’s waging every single day in Africa.

Fan Shelf. We bought a "Yes we can!"mug from here.Magazines with Obama's picture line the shelves.Sitting in the Minnesota airport today, surrounded by a celebration of Obama paraphernalia, I am happy for the American people. They can hold their head up high. They have found a leader who has reminded them of where they came from: a history of poor immigrants in search of a better future, and from what values they were built on: freedom for all.

Here is a beautiful little snapshot from Inauguration Day that I read in The New York Times today.

Noon
At a Homeless Shelter

At the precise moment that Mr. Obama was supposed to take the oath of office (he ran five minutes late) as the first African-American president of the United States, some three dozen men gathered around a big-screen television at the Central Union mission, to celebrate the event over coldcut sandwiches and orange soda.

The scene looked nothing like the elated multiracial throngs witnessing the inauguration on the Mall. The group at the mission, one of the city’s largest homeless shelters, was almost entirely black. Many looked downtrodden, and on the far side of middle-age. And the frayed, muddy clothes on their backs were among their only belongings.

But when Mr. Obama uttered “So help me God, “ the divide between the Mall and the mission disappeared—even if only for a few hope-filled minutes. Many of the men jumped up, clapping and pumping their fists into the air.

“I feel a part of this moment, too,” said Carlton Wilkins, an unemployed electrician and father of three, who stood cheering in the back of the room. “For a long time now, it has felt like this country forgot about the poor. But today, the president said that helping the least among us is important for the well-being of us all.”

Taken from: ‘From Slavery to History’: Americans Witness a Day of Clarity by Sheryl Gay Stolberg read in The New York Times, Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Visiting the community in Nigeria

This little guy from Jayme on Vimeo. 

This week we visited 5 areas of Lagos: all with thier own story, all destitute. The little fella that you meet  on this video lives with his mother and 6 yr old brother in a shack over a swamp in the backyard of "the 419". The 419 in Nigeria earn a living through internet fraud, kidnapping, robbery and they live in this one area: Ogo-Okota. This area is littered with half-completed mansions built on slums. There is no public school or public water system.

Msg: Ear Phone Idea

Hi Lynn, 

Just to remind you that coming with earphone device like MP3 Player, CD Player or iPod with earphone will be a good idea because of your friend the Mosque people that makes calls every morning.

Thanks Rex (from Nigeria)

Advent Conspiracy

adventconspiracy.org

Isn't it a cool opportunity that we have this year because of the recession in our economy to, instead of giving out our abundance, give sacraficially? Give even though it hurts, to things that really matter.

N’ya pila.

In August I was blessed to spend a week in Swaziland with The Story. Prior to taking the team there I had made a trip to Swaziland to sort details and converse with the community organization leader about what activities this team could be involved in. Together we came up with a day by day agenda. By the time I arrived, a month later with team in tow, everything had changed. T.I.A. (This is Africa)

Instead of Home Based Care we spent the first few days with a group of young, vulnerable orphan girls. It happened to be the time of year for the reed dance—an annual country-wide celebration performed by thousands of the countries young, bare-breasted girls—where the Swazi king more often than not chooses another wife. We were there just a week prior to the celebration and it seemed that the whole country was in a flurry of activity. Even school was interrupted. So this community organization decided to take the opportunity to run a camp for young girls. The camp consisted of devotional times and singing, games, talks about their rights, abuse, and entrepreneurial skills workshops for the older girls.

One young man travelled down from a Swazi city, Mbabane, to run an entrepreneurial skills workshop like he had done so many other times to rural communities across Swaziland. I thought to myself that this guy had a pretty good head on his shoulders, being only 23 and devoting his time to such a noble cause. He sat beside me on the drive back up to Mbabane and we started to chat about life. At one point he shared with me that he wanted to wait at least another 5 years before getting married. "That makes sense, in a culture where the elders question you if you don't have children immediately after getting married," I said, "I could see why you would want to wait another 5 years." He laughed.

"No, I don't want to get married because I don't want a wife to question me each time I am out late at night—when in truth I am only out with friends," he said. Now this kind of talk wasn't so foreign to me. I had heard many other African men—and women—tell me that it was not acceptable for a wife to ask her husband where he was. He continued, "No, if I wanted to have children I should have started..." I could see him calculating something in his head, "2 or 3 years ago. You know the life expectancy in Swaziland has dropped down to 37 years?" This made me sit up—this I had never heard before: a man, such a young man, just 23 years, so matter-of-factly accepting his impending death, which would come to him for no reason other than the fact that he was born in Swaziland. It was such a real moment: to be sitting next to someone whom I will most likely outlive by double his lifetime—just because I was born in Canada, and he elsewhere.

The conversation got a little weirder after that. He started talking about how abstaining till he was married was too difficult but marriage now to one woman would be more difficult and that the only way to go was to have multiple wives. And his rationale for this was...blah, blah.

In a land where when you ask someone a simple "How are you doing?" they reply with: "N'ya pila": "I'm alive," what else should I have expected?

Watch us online this week!

The TV broadcast Living Truth recorded stories of the work that we are doing in South Africa and aired it across Canada and the States this past Sunday. If you were unable to watch it you can view it online for this week only. Click here to watch stories of hope and need and learn more about Hands at Work along the way.

gonna be on canadian tele

Okay, well we're not specifically gonna be on canadian television but our Hands at Work projects in South Africa and Mozambique are and so is my childhood friend Laura Eliason! It's happening soon, next weekend. So click here to find out what time and what stations to watch Sunday, October 12th and 19th.

Lynn had a big part in pulling this off and he wrote a preview here of some of the stories that will be featured on the show: TV, travel, hunger.