Thursday, July 11th-visit Adele's handicap home for teaching skills-getting wheelchairs-Rajesh Indian home

Today we had two appointments to see people who were promised wheelchairs from the church, by Lotus FM. We want to make sure that the chairs are going to individuals and not institutions, so we are scoping out the two non government agencies that were listed, along with some individuals getting chairs. Our first appointment was with Adele Walker who runs an organization out of her home for handicapped people who would like to learn skills that will help them earn money and be independent. This turned out to be an amazing experience.


Adele and he husband live in a modest home in the outskirts of Durban. It started when a handicapped woman came to her home and asked her to teach her to sew. She did and then someone else came and asked to be taught. This snowballed quickly until she had to get more machines. Then she started looking into ways for these people to earn money through sewing. She contacted environmental companies and found that they would be interested in having things sewn for them.



They would provide all the materials and pay someone to sew in a straight line all the different materials. This worked out great, so they started checking into sewing other simple items. Handicapped people kept coming and she realized she could not teach them all to sew. She needed another way to keep them busy and help them earn a living, so she visited manufacturing plants to ask them if there was something these people could do.

Adele showing us what they are doing to renew headrests

In one of these places that makes headrests for cars she saw huge bags of stuff stacked everywhere and asked them what it was. They explained that it was the plastic devices used to blow the foam into the headrests, but there was foam still in the plastic, so was not environmentally friendly and could not be thrown away. They didn't know what to do with the stuff. She picked up one of these plastic pieces with foam sticking out and started twisting the foam. It finally came out and she thought, my people can do this. The manufacturer started paying them to do this and they reused the plastic device. Adele thought of other things at the plant that they could do and the plant paid them for all those things. When we visited her that is what the people were doing. This is Adele showing how the device works.




Some were sewing...others taking the foam out of the plastic pieces. They also teach the handicapped to wash their own clothing, so they bought all these washing machines and people in the neighborhood started paying them to wash their clothes.










They eventually got soccer teams to pay them to wash the uniforms and another income source was born. It goes on and on. The lady is a genius and she also got food donated by stores who were throwing out outdated food. She has it prepared the day she receives it and the poor people come and eat twice a week...usually soup in the winter and other simple fare in the summer.

Determining the needs of the centre and how the Church can help

Half of her house is taken over by these projects and she is happy as can be. The people who come there are making money, learning self esteem and all are benefiting from this woman's loving guidance. Since the people she ordered wheelchairs for do not live there, we know these chairs are for them and we suggested that if she knows others to get their names and we will get them a chair also.




We also invited them to attend the concert and she said she would take them all there in kombi. How great is that! Transportation is one of the biggest problems with the people who live here. Two of the ladies, who were so cute, come from Umlazi and she asked them to arrange for a kombi. They may be handicapped, but she treated them like anyone else. It was fun to see.

Aryan Benevolent Home for Indian population

After leaving her place, we travelled to Chatsworth where the Aryan Benevolent Home is. The list Lotus gave us said they were to get 20 chairs, but no names were mentioned. We met with the CEO, Rajesh. He is also an amazing guy. He has about 600 aged people living there. He has about 150 orphans.  The facility is supported by private donations and gets a little from the government. Some of the elderly people are pretty bad off, but there were no smells. Many of them do not have any visitors. He said that some were just dropped off there and their family left notes that they wanted no contact with them again...very sad.

He also has a nursing school. The people studying nursing get to work in the adult care unit, so he saves money there. The place was as clean as can be and Rajesh spoke to the people there as we toured the facility in a very nice way and they knew him. There was a large group of people being taken by the staff to the circus. When we invited them to attend the concert along with the wheelchair recipients, he said that he would bring at least 60 people and to save them seats. He will supply us with names of the people getting wheelchairs.



These are drawings the children made for the aged that live there. Rajesh is Hindu, but is doing the work that Christ would want us to do.

As we were leaving and talking to Rajesh in the parking lot, a lady walked over and gave me a hug and a smacking kiss on the cheek, then she turned to Elder Kyle and he started to shake her hand, but she grabbed him and hugged him and gave him a smacking kiss also. I think he turned red. Rajesh introduced her as Sarah, their resident dementia patient. After she kissed us, she just walked away. He says she does that to everyone. Ha.

Well, we had some eye-opening experiences today and will never forget them. My spirits have been lifted. I met two 'Mother Theresa' types today and realized how much more can be done by us in the U.S. to help ease other's burdens. I know it is something Heavenly Father wants us to know. I now am looking forward to the concert so I can see these people again. WOW!