Monday July 22 - Saturday, July 26 chatsworth YC - deliver blankets to Little Lambs Baby Home

We previously scheduled the guy to do the pressure washing at the Youth Centre on July 21st, but the YC director told us that he was getting paint donated and it would be painted before August 10, so we cancelled the pressure wash. Monday, he told us that he found out the paint company was donating paint, but no labor. He told us it was okay to pressure wash the place, so we called the pressure wash guy again and he said he could do it on the 27th. We turned in invoices to the area office for down payments to all the vendors doing stuff the day of the event, but the area office called and said we couldn't do the pressure wash and needed to find ward members to do it. So, once again Elder Kyle called the pressure washer and cancelled. I sent an email to all the PA people and stake and ward leaders asking for pressure washing help. We got responses immediately from three sources. We also called Brother Brieckhoff again, the Helping Hands director for the stake, and he said he would try and get one of them or more to do pressure washing and all he needed was to know how many hose bibs and electrical outlets, in case the pressure washers needed them. He then laid out a plan to do the Helping Hands activity and we were so happy that he is so efficient. He planned on doing it Saturday, July 21st and Saturday, July 25th.

Tuesday, we went out to Chatsworth Youth Centre to check out the hose bibs and electrical outlets.  When we got there we noticed someone had started painting, but we could not get a hold of the youth centre director and the job was only partially done (very small part), but enough to question whether it was going to get painted or not and whether we should continue with the pressure wash. You can see the difference with the nice clean yellow paint and the wall below it that is not painted.

Courtyard of Youth Center

Wednesday, we tried to find out more but did not reach him, so we went back out to the youth centre (by the way, this place is not close). Nothing else was going on, so we checked and found the hose bib, singular and electrical outlet, singular. Our concert flyers arrived and we took some to the mission home and gave some to the Chatsworth Elders to pass out in Chatsworth. At this stage, we are thinking it will be painted and we can skip the pressure wash, so we let Brother Brieckhoff know. By now, he is probably thinking to just ignore us and maybe we will go away.

Little Lambs home for orphaned babies

Thursday we delivered some baby blankets to the Little Lamb's Baby Home for abandoned or abused children....mostly babies. The Afrikaner woman who is doing this out of a guest house or remodeled garage next to the main house of her property in a very nice Kloof neighborhood, is amazing! She gets very little assistance to run this place and had to rely on donations. Sister Von Stetten got the blankets sent to her from her family in the US. I think it might have been a RS or YW project. She didn't get to deliver them before she left, so she asked us to do it.

Pictures of the babies and toddlers that have stayed there

 She had a whole wall of photographs and she pointed to some of the children and told us their story and who adopted them and talked about the ones staying there now. Three were old enough to go to school so they were not there. Three more were just a few months old and one little boy was between one and two. He was leery of us, so she had to hold him the whole time we were there. A couple of the children (ironically two white girls) were the ones that were abused and they were in school while we were there, but she had their pictures on the wall and they were both adorable.

We were not allowed to take photos of the children's faces

She showed us around the place and told us she is down to six, but she had 13 two weeks ago. She showed us the room where they wash clothes and the clothes that were donated were on hangers in that room. That was the room where the babies are given baths. It was very neat and organized. She said they go through one large package of diapers and a large can of formula every day. What she needs most are diapers and formula, plus soap to wash clothes and dishes, which is continual.

Beds were the occupants sleep

There was a small room with cribs and little beds where they all sleep. Everything was so clean, beds were made and covered with cute little blankets. Another room had a little area on the floor with a big quilt spread out and fenced in with a colorful plastic fence. Three babies on their stomach were looking at bright toys and little stuffed animals. A black woman that works there was laying on the blanket behind the fence talking to the babies. No one was crying, and the place did not smell of diapers or the usual baby smells...very impressive.

Play yard in the front of the building

As she talked about these children, you could see that she loves them and worries about them all. She said that there are 2.5 million babies that need to be adopted, but only 2000 per year actually do. She said the social workers call her first, because they know she cares and the children do very well with her, but she told us that one time the social worker met her at the home where they were supposed to pick up the child and the social worker brought out the child and then left. She couldn't get the child to get into the car with her, so she had to spend an hour persuading the child to go with her. She is a real trooper! There are people like this everywhere we go....working for just the satisfaction of helping others. From what she said, the government run facilities were awful...It's a shame, because most of the children are there.

CE Mobility where we get our wheelchairs made& adjusted

Today Friday, we went back out the youth center to see if they had painted any more, but no luck. I guess the pressure wash is officially back on.
We got the rest of the names of the people getting wheelchairs on August 10th before the concert. I forwarded them on to our wheel chair guy from CE Mobility. His office is in this cute restored ancient house in the Berea area, close to downtown. 

Unicopy for professional printing and supplies

We went to the Unicopy across the street from there to pick up more flyers and we had lunch at the café there in the mall. There were tons of people in the mall. It is Mandela's birthday on the 18th and they celebrate on the 18th and 19th.

Cafe in the mall where we had lunch.

We are going to Cape Town on Monday and we don't have many winter clothes. We heard it was pretty chilly there...at least 10 degrees colder than Durban. Elder Kyle found a pullover sweater at a good price, but I couldn't find anything. There was a lot of extra security in the mall, but nothing going on. Maybe they heard something was going to happen or maybe they were just being prepared because of the holiday, but all was quiet. These tables and chairs were where we ate lunch.