Saturday 27 April 2013

The Accident, The Headache and The Problem with Grace

Another day in Zambia. Another headache with our vehicle. First, we had our car permitting issues. Then we lost both sets of keys. Now? Nothing too exotic … just your regular, run-of-the-mill, car accident. (Now, before anyone panics, the car accident was a mere fender bender and Diane and I are perfectly fine!) Having all this happen in a country like Zambia, where dealing with anything seems like an absolute gong show, just makes it that much more awesome. Having a car in Zambia was supposed to make life easy on us. While it has definitely had its benefits, it’s also brought on more than its fair share of troubles.

We were driving back home from our regular trip to the grocery store on a Friday evening and were stopped at a red light when all of a sudden we got hit from behind. Before I could gather my senses and figure out what was going on, a minibus swiped alongside the driver’s side of my vehicle and continued to drive off. I started honking repeatedly, as if the threat of my feeble little horn would somehow scare the bus driver into stopping. Left with no other choice, I drove off in pursuit of the minibus, frantically trying to determine what my course of action would be. A few seconds into my pursuit, I noticed another car drive past me with its hazards on and pull in front of the minibus, effectively cutting it off and forcing it to pull over. Did this guy get hit too? Or was he just being an upstanding citizen of Zambia and helping a poor foreigner out in time of need? Obviously, it was the former.

I got out of my car and inspected the damage – a big dent on the rear driver’s side, followed by scratches and blue paint all along the side panel and front bumper and a broken rear view mirror, to boot. I was thankful it wasn’t more serious, that my car could still drive, and that neither Diane nor I were injured. I envisioned myself calmly walking up to the bus driver and planting one square in his teeth. Of course, this didn’t happen. Instead, I got out of the car and yelled, “What the hell is this?!” pointing to my now damaged vehicle. I don’t know what that was supposed to accomplish but it was the best I could manage at the time. “Mechanical failure …” the bus driver murmured. I looked over at the minibus. It was an absolute piece. I soon found out that the driver did not have a driver’s license AND that the bus was uninsured. Sadly, this is typical for many of the minibuses in Zambia. With that in mind, I knew this was going to be a nightmare to deal with.






We waited and waited for the police to arrive. At one point, the driver of the other car that was hit (Nathan) and I had to physically restrain the bus driver as he tried to casually walk away from the scene of the accident to “greet his best friend”. Really? He couldn’t come up with something more clever? Needless to say, the whole situation was a bit disconcerting. After about 20 minutes, a policeman finally arrived. He inspected our vehicles and suggested that we all go back to the police station together. Instead of doing as the officer said, the bus driver jumped back in the bus and took off! The officer, having seen the minibus take off, sat in his car and said to me, “I’m worried that he might be trying to get away,” and proceeded to do absolutely nothing about it. I couldn’t believe it. He just sat there and watched as Nathan got back in his car and chased after the bus. “I think they’ll go back to the police station …” the officer said.

From left to right: bus driver, Nathan, me and the police officer
Of course, I lost the officer as I was trying to follow him to the police station and ended up driving around for 30 minutes before finally locating it. As I finished giving my statement to the police, Nathan showed up at the station and explained that he followed the bus all the way to the bus owner’s (a different individual) residence. The bus driver subsequently got out and ran away, disappearing into the community. Nathan, however, managed to speak with the bus owner and received his assurance that he would make good on the damages caused. While this was welcome news, I wasn’t anywhere close to being relieved. I had no faith in the police to do things right, nor did I have any faith in there being any proper process to follow. After all, this is Zambia.

The police told me to come back on Monday morning to file a police report and gave me instructions on how to prepare an application for a police report, which was basically me taking a blank piece of white paper and writing down my information and explaining the incident. This is about as official as things get around here! I could already foresee that this was going to be one giant headache to deal with and that it would eat up a lot of my coming week. What do you know? My prophecy came true.

Monday

I went to the police station in the morning and, after waiting half an hour for the officers to finish their weekly meeting, gave them my application for a police report. The officer told me to return the following morning to pick up my police report. Apparently, it cannot be prepared on the same day. This is Zambia!

In the afternoon, I received a call from the bus owner. He was at the police station with Nathan and, apparently, had already fixed his car. I told the bus owner that I would meet him at the police station the next morning.

Tuesday

I spent the morning driving around town to collect quotes from various panel beaters (Zambian for auto body repair shop). Whether I was to go through insurance or deal with the bus owner privately, I needed quotes to give us an idea of what we were dealing with. There are no shortage of mechanics and panel beaters in Zambia. The challenge is to find ones that actually have their papers and won’t do a bush league job on your car.

The cheapest quote I received came out to 10,000 Kwacha Rebased (KR) (approx. CAD $2,000).  I knew right away that this wasn’t going to go over well with the bus owner. Sure enough, when we showed him the quotes back at the police station, he began posturing at once. He kept calling me “bwana” (meaning “boss”, in Bemba) and begged me over and over again to consider using different panel beaters (read: cheaper panel beaters). He was pouring it on thick. While he never actually got down on his knees, he kept referring to the fact that he was on them, and pleaded with me to deal with him “human being to human being”.

I had sympathy for the bus owner. I really did. He seemed like a nice guy and I appreciated the fact that he was being cooperative in trying to sort the situation out. But I was acting on a matter of principle. I explained to him that while I felt badly that he was in this position, the accident happened through no fault of my own and that, ultimately, I needed to ensure that my vehicle would be restored to the same position it was in before the accident. This meant using only the best panel beaters in town. I also reasoned with him that I was not in a position to compromise or settle because I should not be punished for his failure to obtain proper insurance for his bus.

After more back and forth, the bus owner finally agreed to come to the panel beaters with me, pay 7,000 KR up front (which is all he said he could afford to pay at the time) and then pay the remaining 3,000 KR upon completion of the repairs. I wasn’t entirely confident in his word but he convinced me that he had nowhere to run – the police had all of his information, I had all of his information, and he wasn’t going to attempt to evade the law for 3,000 KR. I handwrote a one-page agreement on a blank sheet of paper and had him sign it (I knew my lawyer skills would come in handy!). I left my vehicle at the panel beaters and went on my way, thinking that everything was settled. If only it had been that simple…

I got a call later in the day from the bus owner saying that I needed to meet him at the police station with my vehicle. I showed up to the station and explained to the officer what we had agreed upon. This is when things got ugly. The bus owner then told the police that he didn’t understand what he was signing at the time but that he was forced into signing the agreement and did so under duress. PARDON?! I almost lost it.

Long story short, the police advised that we go through the proper route of filing a police report and settling through insurance, rather than dealing with it privately. This was no skin off my back. I actually preferred this route but thought that settling it privately would be easier on the bus owner and allow us to get everything sorted out much quicker. I left the police office furious at the bus owner and feeling uneasy about what lay ahead.

Wednesday

I went back to the police station on Wednesday morning to collect my police report. When I met with the officer, she informed me that my insurance covered third-party liability only and was not comprehensive. In other words, my insurance would not cover my vehicle’s damages. Great. The police said I had no choice but to recover from the bus owner personally and that they were “washing their hands clean of the situation”. Basically, we were back at square one and I was left to handle the situation on my own.

The bus owner and I spent the next 3 hours debating and arguing, neither one of us willing to compromise. He kept insisting that all he could afford to pay was 7,000 KR and that paying anything above that amount would cripple him. He also kept trying to convince me that cheaper panel beaters would do just as good a job. I was in no mood to play nice with him anymore, not after he lied to the police about being under duress and forced to sign the contract. To make matters worse, he continued to blatantly lie to my face. At one point, when I berated the bus owner for not having his bus insured, he explained that it was because his bus had been in the garage since 2011. Right. Then, not even 10 minutes later, he tried convincing me that he couldn’t afford to pay above the 7,000 KR because the bus was his only source of income and it had now been impounded by the police. When I called him out on blatantly lying to me, he said that because English was not his first language, there must have been some sort of communication error. What a greasy rat.

Our deadlock continued and we were left at an impasse. I felt I had two options: (1) accept the 7,000 KR and hope that the cheaper panel beater would do a sufficient job; or (2) threaten that I would take him to court. After busting him in the greasy lie described above, I resolved that there was no possible way I was giving into this guy. I was going to discard any shred of compassion or empathy I had and deal with this guy the way he deserved. As a result, I went with option 2. This was a HUGE bluff on my part. There was no way I was going through the Zambian court system to settle this issue. Even if I had the patience or the confidence in the court system, there’s no way I’d be in Zambia long enough to see it through. I was going all in at this point. Fortunately, he bought it. He got on the phone and made some calls. After a brief period, he came back and proposed that he would pay the 7,000 KR to the panel beaters that day and that he would scrounge up the remaining 3,000 KR a few days later. Doing my best to hide my satisfaction, I calmly agreed, and explained that I wouldn’t allow any work to be done on the car until he had paid the amount in full. 

I waited for the bus owner at the panel beaters as he went off to round up his 7,000 KR down payment. A full hour had passed and, still, he had not arrived. Naturally, I began to worry, thinking that I had been duped. Again. Much to my surprise, however, he showed up, head down, eyes to the floor, but with 7,000 KR in hand. He arrived a dejected, defeated man and I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel bad, despite his run-arounds, his lies, and his general wastage of my time. He sorted out the piles of Kwacha bills, counting out the 100’s, 50’s, 20’s, 10’s, 5’s and even 2’s which, you can imagine, took forever. He counted out bill by bill, three times over, slumped in his chair. The painfully slow process only added to my guilt.

As the transaction completed, I walked out of the panel beaters with the bus owner, feeling grateful that this whole ordeal was finally behind us but feeling sheepish that I had left this man a shell of his former self. As we walked to his car, my heart sank. Sitting in his white camping van were his wife and three little girls. The death glare coming from his wife was inescapable. I tried to make nice with the man, thanking him for doing the right thing and he did his best to be cordial. I greeted his wife and children in Bemba, thinking that might score me some brownie points but who was I kidding? The girls, being too young to understand that I had likely just robbed them of their college fund, laughed and giggled at the sound of Bemba words spoken from a Chinaman’s mouth. As I walked back to my car and drove off, the wife’s piercing gaze followed me until I was no longer in sight.

The Problem with Grace

As I spent the next few days thinking about the entire ordeal, I came to realize some deeply humbling things about myself. Initially, I was very pleased with how everything turned out. I was quite proud of the fact that I stood my ground, didn’t get played for a fool, and ended up with the result that I was hoping for. I took pride in handling my business in a foreign country where I knew nothing about the proper process and coming out of it on top. I had, in essence, won. And therein lies the problem.

For those of you who know me, I’m the type of guy that operates very much on principle. It often does not matter how petty something is; if it’s a matter of principle, I will not concede in any way, shape or form. I am insistent on having my rights and will not be denied what is rightfully mine. If somebody wrongs me in any way, I feel justified in becoming incredibly spiteful.

I also have an inordinate amount of pride. When I was at an impasse with the bus owner, I wasn’t so much concerned about the 3,000 KR difference that we couldn’t settle on as I was about being taken advantage of, especially if this man was, in fact, lying to me (which I suspected he was). The vision of the bus owner sitting down with his friends over some beers and telling them about how he conned some Chinaman followed by all of them roaring in laughter at my expense was too much for me to take. Similarly, the thought of having to explain to everyone that I gave in, that I was soft and that I wussed out ate away at me.

Where does this all come from? Why was I so concerned about ‘winning’ when potentially bigger things were at stake? I realized that, in the end, I valued what was “just” and winning this standoff more than I valued the very thing that gives me life. That “thing” is grace.

Some of you may be confused. After reading this story, you may think that all I did was act reasonably, perhaps even wisely, given the situation. All I received was what was owed to me. It’s not like I made out ahead in the situation in any way or acted in a way that compromised my integrity. I was merely doing what was necessary to restore my vehicle to the position it was in before the accident.. Through the world’s standards and through its eyes, I probably did nothing wrong. But, then, why didn’t it feel right?

I believe the one thing that separates Christianity from all other religions in the world is grace. Contrary to popular opinion, Christianity is not based upon obeying a set of rules or commandments out of fear of sinning and being doomed to eternity in the firey pits of hell or, conversely, so that one can ‘earn’ his/her way into heaven. Rather, it’s about recognizing that we are ALL deeply flawed and broken individuals in desperate need of grace. Despite what one may think, no one is in need of any more (or less) grace than the other. It’s binary – you either need grace or you don’t. And we all fit in the former.

This entire concept of grace – the love and mercy given to us by God because God desires us to have it, not because of anything we have done to earn it – is, as I described above, what gives me life. I freely accept it, acknowledging that it is a beautiful, yet incomprehensible, gift. However, I have come to the realization that I am often so unwilling to extend it to others.

This is precisely where I failed. True, if I had given in, if I had compromised, I very well may have screwed myself. The cheaper panel beaters may have done a terrible job. The value of my car may have decreased. The bus owner could have been a wealthy individual that was just too much of a greasy rat to do the right thing. Given the way everything unfolded, it was certainly reasonable to think so. But all of that is irrelevant when it comes to grace. It’s not about the bus owner getting what he deserved, nor about me getting my rights. In fact, it’s the very opposite. It’s about the bus owner, as much as he deserved his fate, being extended the very grace that I hold on to so dearly. Why? Because on the slight chance that he was telling the truth – that he couldn’t afford the full amount and that paying the full amount would cripple him and his family – my “rights” all of a sudden become irrelevant. And there was enough from the smiles of his three young daughters and the utter look of disdain emanating from his wife’s eyes to cast a shadow of doubt over me on this issue. Regardless of where the truth lies, I was too concerned about my own pride, about the principle behind it all, to see what the potential consequences of my hardened heart. Really, what is 3,000 KR (CAD $600) to me? It’s not an insignificant amount of money, by any means (especially to a missionary!), but it’s fair to say that I am fortunate to be in a position where deducting that money from my personal net worth would have relatively little effect on me. Can the same be said for the bus owner and his family? I’m not so sure.

I’m not necessarily saying that I would go back and change the outcome or how I handled the situation. I replay it over and over in my mind, trying to convince myself that I dealt with it in an appropriate manner. The thing I continue to struggle with, however, is my full-out unwillingness to extend grace to others, despite my full-out willingness to accept it from God. This is not to say that, as Christians, we should remove our backbones and become doormats for everyone to trample over. Definitely not. But it does shed light on the confounding nature of grace and why it’s not as simple as it sounds, despite the word having been popularized and religious-ized to death. There will never be an ideal situation to extend grace. It will never make complete sense. It will never seem completely right. And it will always involve a cost.

Even as I write this, I struggle to make sense of it all, to fully grasp it. But I cannot ignore the conviction in my heart and the message that God has conveyed through it. We are called, as His followers, to model Jesus’ life – the king that was a servant, the savior that was mocked and ridiculed, the son of God that came to Earth to establish his upside down kingdom. What does that mean? It means seeking to serve instead of being served. It means sacrificing your needs and rights to care for the needs and rights of others. It means showing love in ways that know no bounds and have no reason. And, it means extending grace just as we undeservedly accept it.

- Byron


Thursday 11 April 2013

The Dirty Thirties

That’s right, folks … it’s happened. On April 8th, I officially crossed over into middle-aged territory. Yes … old balls, indeed. The big THREE ZERO has come upon me. And I couldn’t be more depressed. Ok, I’m just kidding. I’m only a little depressed …

In all honesty, even though it lacked the typical fanfare associated with such a milestone, I had a wonderful 30th birthday. I imagine that, if I had been back home, the celebration would have been a big event, highlighted by making dolla bills rain in the clizzubs and supermodels flanking my side, pouring me Cristal. But I digress… Instead, I was here in Zambia with my wifey and my Hands Family, celebrating the momentous occasion missionary-style. In other words, it was simple, heartfelt and involved very little money! Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed the day and felt very loved and appreciated.

The day started out with Diane surprising me first thing in the morning with her birthday gift to me – a birthday video which she created herself. The video was comprised of pictures of our time so far in Africa and included short video clips of family and friends back home (and in South Africa) wishing me a happy birthday. It was amazing to see our journey over the past half-year displayed in memorable photographs, combined with messages of love and well wishes from the people closest to my heart. I didn’t cry or anything (come on … I don’t cry … I work out!) but by the end of the video, I was definitely touched. I can’t really explain the emotions other than to say that I felt incredibly blessed.

The day then continued with a visit to one of our communities, Mulenga, where we hosted a team from Greenfinch Church in the UK. Normally, I would be less than enthusiastic about having to “work” on my birthday but I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend my big day. We met together with the care workers in Mulenga (whom I have come to know quite well now) and split off into groups to do home visits – visits to the homes of children in our CBO program, to the homes of sick patients in the community that we care for, and to the homes of some of the care workers. After a few hours, we met back together as a group and enjoyed a good ol’ African feast of mielie meal, chicken and vegetables that was sponsored by the Greenfinch Team. Sure beats my daily tuna sandwich! I was my usual gluttonous and disgusting self – profusely sweating, while bits of food found themselves stuck to the side of my face and my hat, devouring my hefty portion while everyone waited for me to finish – but, hey, it was my birthday! We then debriefed our home visits from earlier in the day and shared stories from each home that we visited.

Something truly amazing happens during home visits. I don’t know how to really explain it. The visits are heart-wrenching enough on their own but, when you take that story – the story of some of the most marginalized and vulnerable people in the poorest of the poor communities – and share it with people who share the same heart and love for them, there’s something incredibly powerful about it. It’s a message of resilience overcoming brokenness, hope in the face of hopelessness and love that knows no boundaries. It’s like God is moving through each word that is spoken, each story that is shared, and reminding us that these are the very people that Christ will build His kingdom upon.

Another birthday surprise was in store for me at the end of the workday. Diane had spent the day at Kachele Farm (Hands’ main hub in Zambia located 40 minutes from Kitwe) working on finance stuff, as she usually does. Typically, she does not return to Kitwe until 4:30 or 5:00 pm. But for this day, she made sure she returned to the Service Center before we were scheduled to come back from Mulenga (maybe a little too early as she ended up waiting for us for 2 hours!). I sensed something was up when we pulled up to the gate outside our office complex and Towela, who was driving, opened up her door and ran out of the car. As I expressed my confusion, she couldn’t look me in the eye but hastily blurted out, “I have an emergency! I have to go to the bathroom! Bring the car in!” Interesting that she couldn’t have waited the extra 10 seconds to park the car. Also interesting that, as she ran through the gate, she turned towards our office, rather than towards the bathrooms, which are in the opposite direction. She’s so cute. As I pulled up to our office, I noticed the office door was closed, which it never is. How very peculiar ... At this point, I figured I was in store for a … “SURPRISE!!!” As I opened the door, I was greeted by Towela, Mary and, of course, the mastermind behind it all, my lovely wife, all wearing party hats and blowing noisemakers in my face. The office was decked out in balloons, music was playing, and chocolate cake and Sprite (what a weird combo, hey?) lay waiting for me on one of the desks. Diane lit the candles, I made my wish, and I blew them out … kind of (the candles had some sort of weird, mystical technology where the flame would repeatedly re-light itself despite being blown out).

Birthday cake with voodoo candles!
Three to the Zero!
The party didn't end for Clement even as he was going home
Everything about this moment was so special to me. Here I had my small Zambian family – Towela, Clement and Mary (Blessings was out of town) – celebrating my birthday with me hours past their normal workday in our warehouse-like office, with chocolate cake and Sprite (again, weird combo!) purchased from Shoprite (an African grocery store chain), in a little surprise gathering put together by my wife that worked so creatively within our means to make this day extra special for me. This, my friends, is as simple as it gets. And I wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

It’s weird how things work out. God has obviously led me to Zambia, to Africa, at this time in my life for a very specific purpose. I am seeing things and experiencing things that have changed and will forever change me. I have met so many people here that will forever hold a special place in my heart. In the past, I spent so much of my time wishing away the present, anxiously waiting to arrive at some undetermined point in the future when I would have everything together, where I would feel like I was living life the way it was meant to be lived. Now, as much as I am able to, I’m choosing to embrace my present and enjoy every moment of it (even if it means entering into a new decade!). I’m not saying that I no longer experience anxiety about my future. In fact, I think it’s part of my DNA. But, in spite of my constant worrying and fears about what lies ahead, God somehow led me on this crazy journey and I am strangely at peace with it.

If at any point in my past, you had told me that, at 30 years old, I would be a missionary in Africa, earning $0 income, married to a Vietnamese(!) girl AND not playing in the NHL, I would have called you a liar. A dirty, filthy, rat liar. Yet, here I am. It is nothing even remotely close to what I had planned or envisioned for my life … and, yet, I feel like I’m living the dream. With God leading the way and the love of my life by my side, I have everything I need and, for that, I am very thankful.


Thursday 4 April 2013

A Story from the Community: Kelvin and Roderick

Kelvin and Roderick are brothers that live in Kamakonde, one of the communities that Hands at Work supports through the Kitwe Service Center. Kelvin is 16 years old and Roderick is 13 years old. They are double orphans, their parents having passed away several years ago when the boys were young, living only with their widowed grandmother, Phyllis, who is 78 years old. Phyllis had 10 children, all of whom have passed away, and one of whom was Kelvin and Roderick’s mother.

The family lives in a small brick house with tin sheets that barely pass as a roof. The boys sleep in one room, Phyllis in another. Their “beds” consist of wooden crates with fabric draped over top. There are no mattresses. During the day, the fabric must be removed from the crates because when the rains come, it leaks into the rooms of the house. There is no bathroom.

The outside of the family home
The hallway inside the front door
Kelvin and Roderick's bedroom
Grandma Phyllis' bedroom
What Grandma Phyllis sleeps on
The back room of the house

Inadequate roofing
In 2009, Kelvin and Roderick both stopped attending school because they did not have the financial means to pay for their school requirements (in Zambia, all children attending government schools must pay for school fees, school supplies, exam fees and uniforms).

In 2012, Kelvin and Roderick were identified by our community based organization (CBO) in Kamakonde as amongst the most vulnerable children in the community. They were brought into the CBO program (that currently cares for 100 children in the community), where they receive one meal every day at the CBO care point, and are visited in their home by care workers on a weekly basis. Despite these essential services being freely made available to them, Kelvin and Roderick seldom go to the care point to receive their meals or interact with the care workers and other children. Instead, they search the community for piecework in an effort to earn money and provide food for their grandmother. Phyllis’ health is in very poor condition. She has problems with her legs and is unable to walk long distances, much less work. She is almost completely blind. Without access to any other form of support, she is solely dependent on her two grandsons. As a result, Kelvin and Roderick have taken on the responsibility of being the “men” of the house and to care for their grandmother.

In April 2012, Hands at Work invited Phyllis, Kelvin and Roderick as special guests to Celebrations, an annual three-day conference that gathers and unites international and local volunteers across the 8 African countries and the 5 international offices that Hands operates in. At Celebrations, Kelvin and Roderick had the opportunity to share their story – a story that, unfortunately, is all too familiar for many of the children and families in our communities. Hearts were touched as members of the Hands family rallied around their family and gathered support for them. From the money that was donated, both Kelvin and Roderick were able to return to school. All of their school requirements, including school fees, uniforms and books were purchased for them. Owners of only a single t-shirt each, extra clothes were also purchased for the boys. The rest of the money was set aside to purchase food and other provisions for the family on an as-needed basis.

This year, Roderick is in grade 9 attending a government school in Chibulumba (the CBO-run school that provides basic free education for our children only goes up to grade 5). Kelvin, on the other hand, failed to pass his grade 9 exams in 2012, largely due to the fact that he continues to spend the majority of his time looking for piecework to support his family. As a result he, again, no longer attends school.

The extreme hardships that Kelvin and Roderick face on a daily basis make them especially vulnerable. Just before Christmas last year, Kelvin made 300 bricks for a man in Lusaka (Zambia’s largest city which is approximately 400 kms from Kitwe) who had recently purchased property in the Kamakonde community and intended to build a house on the land. The cost of the job was 500,000 Kwacha (CAD $100). As per their verbal agreement, Kelvin received a small amount up front as a deposit (10%), with the balance to be paid upon completion of the job. A short while later, the man abandoned his property in Kamakonde. Although Kelvin had already finished making all 300 bricks, the man elected not to pay him the remaining balance owing. Kelvin left all the bricks at the man’s property but many of them, since then, have been destroyed or ruined. In an attempt to collect his money, Kelvin travelled all the way to Lusaka, on the promise that the man would fulfill his payment obligations. Even when Kelvin arrived in Lusaka, the man continued to delay with the payment. Kelvin had no choice but to stay at the man’s house and wait. At the end of each day, the man would reassure Kelvin by telling him, “I’ll pay you tomorrow.” After 3 days in Lusaka, Kelvin could not wait any longer and returned to Kitwe to care for his grandmother.

On several occasions, Kelvin and Roderick have travelled by foot to the Service Centre (an 18 km journey, round trip) out of desperation, in search for help. The money raised at Celebrations has since run out. At times, the staff at the Service Centre have dug into their own pockets out of compassion for this family in an attempt to help in any way they can. However, with their extremely modest incentives and with their own families to take care of, this is not a sustainable solution. On one particular visit, when Kelvin was asked by our Service Centre team why he wasn't going to school, he bluntly replied that, if he didn't earn money to buy food for his family, his grandmother would die. It goes without saying that these are not the burdens that any 16-year old boy should bear.

Last week, we, as a Service Centre team, arranged a meeting with our CBO in Kamakonde. We sat down with three care workers from the CBO and emphasized the urgency of the situation and the need for the care workers to intervene. We reminded them of the importance of registers at the care point, to track which children were or were not coming, and of regular and meaningful home visits. We reiterated that Hands at Work is not just in the business of being a service provider but that the vision is to transform children’s lives through Christ-like love. The message rang loud and clear. We then requested that the CBO set aside a portion of food for Phyllis from the care point so that she could, at the very least, have something to eat every day. While this is not an ideal solution, and not something we would typically propose, the circumstances warranted it. This would also enable Kelvin and Roderick to stay in school, rather than spend their days looking for piecework.

We then went to the family’s home and visited with Phyllis and Kelvin (Roderick was at school). We sat together on a mat outside their home and listened as Phyllis and Kelvin explained their story and answered questions from Towela and the care workers. We shared with them our concern for their situation and the importance of Kelvin returning to school. We explained to Phyllis that the Service Centre, the CBO and the care workers were there to support her and to care for her grandsons. We helped her understand that she was not alone.

The Home Visit
The meeting with the care workers and our visit to the family’s home helped attend to some very urgent matters. Phyllis could find comfort in the security of knowing she would receive at least one meal per day. In addition, our time spent with Kelvin, together with the new arrangement to have a portion of food set aside for his grandmother, helped encourage him to commit to going back to school in the new term (starting in May). The care workers, in turn, pledged to continue to support the family and follow up with them on a regular basis. While all of this was encouraging, by no means do we consider the problem solved or pat ourselves on the back for a job well done. We understand that Phyllis, Kelvin and Roderick will likely continue to experience more than their fair share of struggles, that they will be forced to continue to endure through difficult circumstances and that our meeting/visit is only the start of our journey with them. But the important thing is that we came, we saw and that we are committed to walking with them. We know their story and they know our hearts. If they had any doubts before, hopefully they can realize that they are valued and that they will be cared for.

Please pray for Phyllis, for Kelvin and for Roderick – that they would somehow find provision and peace, despite their incredibly difficult circumstances, and that they would come to know and understand God’s love and grace for them.

Kelvin and Grandma Phyllis