Mum to South Africa's AIDS orphans - CFN Newsletter Week 147

CHRISTIAN FAMILY NETWORK NEWSLETTER 147

> Mum to South Africa's AIDS orphans
> News:
> North-east church lands 'family-friendly' recognition
> Anger at news that the Pill has been prescribed for 10-year-olds
> National charity appoints churches coordinator
> Sites:
> Prayer resources from Revival, UCB, NavPress and 24-7prayer plus a devotional writer for busy women
> Marriage MOT: Words, words, words
> You've got to laugh: Things only a mum can teach
> Members' Zone latest

> OUR SPONSORS FOR THIS WEEK

The UK's leading provider of outreach resources for churches now has its summer brochure out - including a remarkable photo of 'Jesus in the clouds' - discover CPO at www.cpo.org.uk

> FROM THE EDITOR

Dear all

It's been great meeting lots of people at this week's Christian Resources Exhibition and the recent Salvation Army Roots Conference.

We're very encouraged by your support - and also very excited at the news that Families Together magazine has been shortlisted along with four other titles in the Andrew Cross Awards, National Publications category (the only national awards for religious publications)

I'll be heading up to Swanwick next month to see if we've been successful! Meanwhile, we're hard at work on our summer issue, which will be out early in July.

Hope you find lots that interests you in this week's update!

Take care

Russ

Russ Bravo
Christian Family Network
info@cfnetwork.co.uk
http://www.cfnetwork.co.uk

PS Christian Family Network is here to direct you to the best in parenting, marriage and family resources; to link you up with other Christian families up and down the UK; and to help you make the most of life as a follower of Christ - at home, at work, at school and college, at play and online.

Your feedback, positive and negative, enables us to develop CFN in the way that is most useful for you - so please tell us if we're off the rails or on the button!

And don't forget - if we can pass on material (sample copies of Families Together, leaflets) which will help you tell your friends and your church about CFN, just mail Lyn Bedford at marketing@christianmedia.org.uk and she'll be glad to help you out.

INSPIRATION

Mum to the motherless

• In the new book, God’s Golden Acre, DALE LE VACK, tells the true story of how Heather Reynolds became mother to hundreds of Aids orphans

In 1993 on a trip to Uganda, South African Heather Reynolds was visiting a remote part of the country when, by chance, she came face to face with the worst scourge to afflict mankind since the medieval plagues, and one that has destroyed the lives of millions of children.

As she got out of her car at a small settlement to get water from a spring, she met a group of children, the orphaned victims of Aids. Here she witnessed their misery and terror as they awaited death by starvation, uncared for by adults.

Some years before that day, Heather Reynolds had given her life to God but was waiting for the call to serve him. At that moment she knew this was his call. Slowly, she knelt down in the native hut and looked upon a little boy covered by a dirty sack. His parents had either abandoned him, or they themselves had died. He was spending his last hours alone and uncared for.

As the boy lay still, waiting for death, the look in his eyes stills haunts Heather, even though, in later years, she has encountered many more young Aids victims, some of whom have died in her arms.

She promised God she would live, for the rest of her life if necessary, by serving him in the cause of caring for, and nursing, babies and children orphaned by the Aids pandemic. Heather decided she would use her life savings to provide shelter for orphaned children. Believing they were answering God’s call, Heather and her husband Patrick Reynolds, a well known sculptor, filled their home with sick and abandoned children. They called their little community God’s Golden Acre.

From there, in 1999, God’s Golden Acre moved on to become a cluster of foster homes at Cato Ridge. Built on the top of a hill, it is near to the Valley of a Thousand Hills, a vast rural area between Durban and Pietermaritzberg. Approximately 95 children, between the ages of a few months and 16 years of age, live in the community.

Most of Heather’s children are healthy. Many HIV positive babies die before their first birthday, few make it beyond their fourth. God’s Golden Acre is designed as a sanctuary to allow this small minority to die with dignity in a loving environment, and as a family home for the surviving children, who are well fed, cheerful, confident, and attend the best local state schools.

Then there is a series of rural outreach programmes for thousands of orphans who are living in extended families in the Valley of a Thousand Hills. Heather’s teams of staff and volunteers distribute basic food supplies to the ad hoc families she has helped to create, many headed by an elderly ‘granny’ figure, or a teenage girl.

Heather drives her familiar Land Rover alone into remote countryside to visit the sick and dying, offering comfort and prayer, and rescuing children. To many of the Zulus in the Valley of a Thousand Hills, Heather has become known as "Mawethu", which means "Our Mother", or "Gogo" – "Our Gran".

Within the whole of southern Africa, KwaZulu-Natal has the greatest number of HIV/Aids cases. Thirty-six percent of its people were recorded infected in 2000, eight percent higher than in the capital province of Gauteng. In these stricken lands of the Aids pandemic, where murder, hijack, and robbery is common, it is mostly grandmothers and older siblings who are left to cope with the responsibility of bringing up the family’s children. Their own deceased offspring, the working adult generation, have disappeared, victims of the virus.

These extended families are impoverished, and the gogos (grandmothers) who run them find it increasingly difficult to provide for their young ones. Only a few have piped water to their home, electricity, fuel or opportunities for employment. Failing health and almost non-existent medical facilities further add to the seriousness of the situation. Much of the help the children receive is dependent upon individuals like Heather, working with the support of other non-government organizations, and a patchwork of charities.

• Read the rest of this article in our Resources section at http://www.cfnetwork.co.uk/members/resources.asp

> THIS WEEK'S NEWS

> North-east church lands 'family friendly' recognition

Lanchester Methodist Church in County Durham has become the first Family Friendly Church to be recognised by the UK wide charity, The Family Friendly Churches Trust.

Go to http://www.cfnetwork.co.uk/members/news.asp for the full story

> National charity appoints churches' co-ordinator

Rev Richard Hardy has been appointed as the new Churches and Community Development Manager at Care for the Family. He will take up this strategic role in September.

Go to http://www.cfnetwork.co.uk/members/resources.asp for the full story

> Anger at news that the Pill has been prescribed for 10-year-olds

National charity LIFE has issued a warning that if it heard of any doctor, school nurse or family planning clinic giving the Pill to very young girls, it would immediately report them to the police.

Go to http://www.cfnetwork.co.uk/members/news.asp for the full story

> MARRIAGE MOT

> Check out our archived marriage tips in the Members' Zone, plus stacks more marriage resources at http://www.2-in-2-1.co.uk

Words, words, words, what do they mean?

I was reading a book recently about marriage and was struck by the words, “When a wife asks her husband, “Do you love me?”, she is probably asking to be cherished.” We sometimes play games with words. Perhaps we are not sure how to put something, so we work around to it. Perhaps we’ve never been good at coming out and saying something straight. Maybe we fear the other person's reaction? Perhaps we’re not good at letting others see how deep our need is.

Do you sometimes find it hard to know what your loved one really means? Why not try to listen to what is behind the words? “Do you love me?” may mean: “I need to be reassured that I’m loved. I need attention, romancing...”

Do you say what you really mean? And can you do it gently and sensitively?

(Quote from Marriage, restoring our vision, David Robertson, BRF)

> EVENTS

> YOU'VE GOT TO LAUGH ...

Things only a mum can teach

My Mother taught me about ANTICIPATION:
"Just wait until your father gets home."

My Mother taught me about RECEIVING:.
"You are going to get it when we get home!"

My Mother taught me to MEET A CHALLENGE:
"What were you thinking? Answer me when I talk to you ... Don't talk back to me!"

My Mother taught me LOGIC:
"Because I said so, that's why."
&
"If you fall out of that swing and break your neck, you're not going to the sweet shop with me."

My Mother taught me MEDICAL SCIENCE:
"If you don't stop crossing your eyes, they are going to freeze that way."

My Mother taught me to THINK AHEAD:
"If you don't pass your spelling test, you'll never get a good job."

My Mother taught me ESP:
"Put your sweater on; don't you think I know when you're cold?"

My Mother taught me HUMOUR:
"When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don't come running to me."

My Mother taught me how to BECOME AN ADULT:
"If you don't eat your vegetables, you'll never grow up."

My Mother taught me about GENETICS:
"You're just like your father."

My Mother taught me about my ROOTS:
"Do you think you were born in a barn?"

• Find more in our Resources section at http://www.cfnetwork.co.uk/members/resources.asp

> CHRISTIAN FAMILY NETWORK THIS WEEK
(MEMBERS' ZONE) - http://www.cfnetwork.co.uk/members/default.asp

> Advice
> Kate's Marriage advice - words, words, words
> Eric Spellmann concludes his look at computer viruses ...
> How to treat the mums at your church - special tips from one London church's experience

> Resources
> Mum to South Africa's AIDS orphans
> Things only a mum can teach
> Ken Tada, husband of Joni, on God's blessing when times are tough

> Magazine
> The lowdown on what's in our latest issue of Families Together

> News:
> North-east church lands 'family-friendly' recognition
> Anger at news that the Pill has been prescribed for 10-year-olds
> National charity appoints churches coordinator

> News extra: Esther Rantzen backs helpline for adults abused during childhood

> Sites:
> Five year licence for Cross Rhythms City Radio
> How family-friendly is your church?
> Joint prayer event for autism sufferers
> Salvation Army's growing youth outreach: ALOVE

> Events: New family events plus what's on near you

> Webwatch index: more than 700 sites categorised at your fingertips

> Site Search Engine: the easy way to trawl our 1,000-page plus archives

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