South Africa Trip 3

On Wednesday lunchtimes the One Future Foundation Team take lunch down for the homeless on Durban sea front. Each week the people gather and wait for the team to arrive. 

 Food is donated by different companies, sandwiches are made up and each person receives those together with a drink, snacks and an apple. Some take extra for their children

After the food is handed out, most of those who have gathered will wait for the pastor to bring a word of encouragement. This is always welcomed by the poor and vulnerable who are there. On this occasion my husband brought the word and we were privileged afterwards to be able to pray with those who asked. The lives that these people live are desperate, if they dont make enough money during the day by begging or during the night if they are sex workers, then they dont have a roof over their heads to sleep. Those roofs are at the shelters that I mentioned in my previous post. Often they will sleep on the beach when the weather is good.

 

The message my husband brought was one of unconditional love and hope, these people were captivated by hearing of the Heavenly Father who looks at them through eyes of love and doesnt see them as they see themselves. We were able to reassure them of His love and of our love. Most had never known human love in their lives before and to hear that they can have this Father child relationship with a heavenly Father was a new concept. We left this time wanting to go right back and sharing the Fathers heart all over again.

if you would like to help support our daughter and family as they work to bring hope to the homeless please visit
www.justgiving.com/kingsroadchurch

Quilted Cushions

I've been making quilts for years, having done a few courses back in the early 90's. Recently I started a City & Guilds in Patchwork & Quilting, although over the years I have picked up much of the basics, I thought that to do a qualification would help me in the future if I decide to teach the subject. With the C & G I have to carry out the work and then post it all on a blog for grading. If you would like to look at the work I've been doing you can see it at www.lindseytomsquilts.wordpress.com

I am also thinking about trying to sell my quilts etc on line. I have had an etsy shop in the past, selling children's clothes,but although I sold some items, I just didnt have the time to promote it and found that others were selling similar items on etsy at much lower prices. 

At the moment I am trying to build up a number of items which I think may sell on a website, when I get around to setting one up.

Here is one of the cushions that I have made, I love the 'flying geese' design for quilts and I also love plains and Liberty fabrics.

I quilted this cushion with a Sashiko style stitching using a very fine crochet thread.

  

South Africa Visit part 2

 Leizelle

Vashti and one of 'her girls'

Vashti just giving Yvonne a donated pram and bag of baby items for her little boy

Our feet had hardly touched the ground after the beach cleaning, we collected the boys from their new school, all three have been given full bursaries at a lovely school. Their parents have been homeschooling them for a few years because schooling is so expensive in SA. But being given these bursaries has meant that they boys can fully enter into school life and our daughter and husband have more time to be ministering together. 

After dinner Vashti told me we were heading out with the other two girls from the team to drop off some donations at the homeless shelter and then hit the sea front to minister to the sex workers. 

I had been told about the homeless shelters and seen photos, but nothing prepared me for what I saw. Leizelle, in the top photo above, was my tour guide, one of the team came with me. Beds were lined up along the room, mostly 3 beds high, some with people sleeping on them, some not. All filthy, the smell was pungent, Lizelle proudly showed me her bed and then headed off down through the beds to show me the shower block, I sort of wished we had skipped that part of the tour. Lizelle was pretty drunk and I could fully understand why people who have to live in these places drank themselves to oblivion. 

Next stop after the shelter was the sea front to find the sex workers, we had a car full of lovely canvas bags which had been donated by a perfume company. Each bag contained a perfume sample, an item of clothing, toiletries, condoms and any other nice items that the team had been donated. Some of the sex workers are already known by the team, others are new to the strip and the team make a point of introducing themselves and getting to know the girls. 

The team collect bags from individuals too, who want to help support the work. People love to fill a bag with things which they think will be helpful for the girls. If the team know a girl has already had a bag they will give them toiletries, protection etc.

They drive up and down for about an hour, stopping when they see a girls and calling her over to the car if they cant pull up alongside. If they know the girl they will check on how she is, if she has any needs etc. The team purposely dont take money but they often take food and will invite the girls to come along to the feeding point the following Wednesday lunchtime. 

If they dont know the girl, they will ask her name, age, where she lives etc. They will let her know about the feeding point and that they will be down on the sea from the following Thursday to check how they are and if they can help them in any way. 

That first night I was struck by how young some of these girls are, some barely out of puberty. The team always offer prayer for the girls and more often than not the girls take up the offer. It was a privilege to spend time with these girls, to pray for them and to hug them. As I was doing so I wondered how long it had been since someone just hugged them for who they were and not for what they were. 

I came home from that evening feeling completely shell shocked and so grateful for One Future Foundation and the team of girls who go out every week to catch up on 'their girls'.

If you would like to help support our family as they carry out their love and work with the homeless, you can do so by visiting www.justgiving.com/kingsroadchurch 

South Africa Trip

I havent blogged in ages. I am taking a City & Guilds online course in patchwork and quilting ( www.lindseytomsquilts.wordpress.com )  and that, together with my church work and travelling into London to look after Eugene on Mondays, just takes up my days.

But we have just returned from visiting our eldest daughter and family in South Africa and I would love to share our trip with you.

We hadnt seen our daughter for three years nor our son in law and grandsons for over five years and we hadnt met the youngest so a visit was well over due. 

They work as missionaries and have adopted their boys. They work with the homeless and sex workers in Durban. 

Our trip was amazing, so lovely to see them all and to get involved with the ministry that they are part of.

We arrived on the Wednesday afternoon and went straight into ministry work the following morning at 8.30am. The team meet on the sea front to rake and clean the beach. The purpose of this is to eventually employ homeless people to do this work and therefore help them out of the never ending circle of begging, receiving just enough for a night in the homeless shelter, or not, if they dont raise enough money and then begging again the following day.

Although our family have been in SA and working with orphans and homeless for nearly thirteen years, this ministry is in its early days. This work of cleaning the beach is attracting lots of attention and people are really encouraged with what the team are doing. The weather was hot, about 30 degrees and a number of homeless join the team a few mornings a week to carry this out.I will post more soon :)

Recent knits

I have recently been knitting, and made the little brown jacket that Eugene is wearing before he was born but now it fits him just right. 

The twins found patterns in a wool shop that they liked, I was pleased they chose different styles as I find it boring to have to repeat the same pattern just after finishing one. 

I was a little concerned when I saw the patterns but thankfully they weren't as complicated as they looked :) 

 

I don't have great photos of them wearing them. Here they are cuddling either Pom or Clouds, I'm not sure which

Hair brushing time :) 

Fortieth Wedding Anniversay

Back in February we celebrated our fortieth wedding anniversary. On the actual date we were in Devon for our grandson, Gilby's birthday party. After the fab space party we all went out for an anniversary supper. 

It's not easy to get all our family together, our eldest daughter and family are missionaries in South Africa so they weren't able to join us and the rest of the family weren't able to get together until March when our son organised a great meal out in London at Roka, an amazing Michelin star contemporary Japanese restaurant. 

We met up at the London Museum where the grandchildren enjoyed some time before going on the the Barbican area and then moving on to Canary Wharf where the restaurant is.

The meal was amazing, we all enjoyed the food including the children who all love sushi. The atmosphere and service all added to the great time had by all. 

Grandpa and Ptimrose were trying to avoid the cracks in the pavement 

Eugene enjoyed some special time with Auntie Amy and the children always love being with their uncles 

As well as it being hard to get everyone together it's also hard to get everyone to look normal, I did say 'nice faces please' but clearly some one didn't hear me

They gave us a lovely big table right near the 'all you can eat' buffet 😊

Easter Break

I hope you all had a lovely Easter, our son, daughter in law and grandson Eugene came to stay Thursday to Saturday.  The sun shone and we sat in the garden, it's been a while since we did that!  I can't believe that Eugene will be one year old later this month. 

Our daughter in South Africa sent Eugene a voice message telling him how much she loves him, he loved hearing his name. I look forward to the time they all meet for real. 

As my husband is the church pastor we waited till after lunch on Easter Sunday before we headed over to Dove Cottage in Wales. We had planned on doing some work in the cottage and taking some trips out. 

We woke on the Monday to snow on the field and mountains opposite but had decided to head to the coast where the sun shone and we managed a picnic. I will post about that trip another time. 

We had taken a trailer with us of items for the cottage, we have oak and glass doors for when hubby builds his studio down the garden and new windows for the front of the cottage. These jobs will be done at a later date but we managed to lay new oak flooring in the kitchen and upstairs landing which is looking great. 

Molly loves to sit on the bedroom window sill looking out at the sheep and new born lambs :) 

red oak quilts

Now we are in February and I have hardly blogged at all, just once so far this year, my quilting has been just as slack...

These are a few gifts I have made for the some of the family. I love the Flying Geese design but haven't made much in it. The first two photos below are of a quilt I made for my youngest daughter for Christmas. I have used lovely plain cotton fabrics on calico. I dont know if others have noticed but IKEA sells beautiful calico fabric at just £2 per metre.

I have hand quilted this using very fine embroidery/crochet cotton in a natural colour. This is lovely to use and glides through the fabric and wadding smoothly.

The following photos are cushions I made for my eldest son, one for his birthday and two for Christmas, I have one more top waiting to be hand quilted and then made up into a cushion cover. I have use Irish linen for these cushion covers and hand quilted with sashiko thread which is also lovely to quilt with.

We have just returned from a week in Devon celebrating Gilby's fifth birthday, Amy's birthday and our 40th wedding anniversary.Hopefully I will get to blog about those events before the month ends :)

Post Christmas

I realised I haven't posted since before Christmas and here we are nearly in February!

We enjoyed a lovely peaceful Christmas, our two sons, daughter in law and newest grandson came to stay. It was Eugenes first Christmas so lots of excitement!

Eugene loved unwrapping his gifts and we all enjoyed lots of cuddles, my favourite cuddle times were when I let his parents go for a nap and I had him all to myself. He is such an easy baby and loves to cuddle and nap on our knees which is something I particularly treasure. His final surgery happened two weeks ago and he is doing so well. From April I will be going to look after him one day a week when his mummy returns to her nursing job. I can't wait!

The day after Boxing Day we drove to Devon to spend time with our daughter and family, the weather was mostly wet but we managed a trip to the beach on the rare dry day. 

We then drove to our cottage in Wales for a few days, again very wet weather but nice and snug inside, my sister and husband joined us for New Years Day

Last week we saw snow for one day, nothing like the east coast of USA have been seeing!