Morning Star...

Just look into those eyes. For most of the children here at Morning Star they have similar eyes - full of life and laughter and a little bit of naughtiness! There are a few children who are obviously poorly - you can tell by the effort it takes them to do anything, and their eyes have a lifeless look about them. But for the majority, at a glance, they are like children anywhere.

It's hard to describe the emotion you feel when you look at such little ones - when you look into those eyes full of life and realise that it's unlikely they will ever reach 18. Not much of the life I have experienced will ever be theirs and all of their life experience I will never know.



And here is where Morning Star does such an amazing work. It is a day centre in Welkom where HIV/Aids infected children can have a quality of life that they would not normally have. You see, for many in this area who are infected, there is a stigma attached, not just within the neighbourhood, but sometims within families. It has been known for those who have developed terminal TB or menangitus as a result of HIV, to have been abandoned - but thankfully Morning Star provides a ray of hope.



The children are picked up from the local townships, one of which is known as Thabong. This is a sprawling network of brick and tin shacks with minimal sanitation. At the far end of Thabong there lies a graveyard. For a town of only 60 or so years existence, the graveyard is disproportionately large. In fact, it is so large I couldn't see the end of it. A whole generation is missing and many of these children are looked after by grandparents or older siblings.



The children charge out of the minibuses and into the centre at 9.00 am, the younger ones (pre-school) are given a breakfast of porridge, which they absolutely love, whilst the older ones head straight for school. Following about half an hour of singing (devotions), there are lessons for the rest of the morning in both English and the local language, Thutsu, in two of the rooms which double as dining areas. Beth and I both had a go at dancing with the children during the morning singing, but these little guys have rythm in their blood!





Following the morning lessons the children play outside - and it's great to watch. You see their smiles (and occasional tears - they are kids after all!) and hear the laughter. We have even been treated to some of the local dances that they have learnt. Awesome!



Following lunch - which incidentally always smells amazing - the kids have an hour sleep. Their bodies need it. And then some more games outside until hometime. And so there is a typical day at Morning Star, if you can call any day typical! There is much more that gos on in the background as I'm sure you'll appreciate. There is a nurse, the clothing stores, food parcel distribution, the overall administration of all of this.

But I'll sign off with a moving picture. It is one of the things you cannot miss when you visit Morning Star - the wall of rememberance. Every name on that wall is the name of an individual child that has been through the doors at Morning Star since it opened in 2000, that has known the ongoing love and support that is shown here, and that has died....

To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you might just be the world.
(Thank you to all who contributed to Morning Star recently - it is greatly appreciated).

Into Africa...

It was really close. Catching the train in Shrewsbury with 5 minutes to spare after four hours sleep the night before doing last minute preparations..well I hadn't quite banked on that. Still, the train journey went well, even if we both were shattered and couldn't quite believe we were going to be out of the country for six months. Beth and I were both really impressed with the flight out with Virgin Atlantic - not that we ever even got close to the Atlantic. The grub was great and we even managed to get some sleep - nothing short of a miracle for Matt.

We landed on Thursday to a warm slightly misty morning. A nice introduction to South Africa. After negotiating our way through customs and grabbing our bags we spent the next two hours sorting out a hire car. This was made particularly stressful by a blunder from our bank who had unbeknown to us managed to cancel not only mine, but Beth's credit cards too. So there we were at the airport feeling kinda small. Thankfully, as a last minute precaution, Matt stashed an old and rather underused credit card into his wallet which sorted out the car! And here would be a good spot to say a huge thank you to Candida, from our home church, for being on the end of the phone and dropping everything to help us. We didn't laugh much at the time - but hey, this is what adventures are made of!!

The drive to Welkom in our Toyota Yaris (which incidentally has confirmed my fears about company cars!) was through low lying grasslands, slightly undulating just enough so that you didn't despair as you drove along the dead striaght roads. Welkom is not a tourst attraction. It still has a few gold mines in operation and the skyline has terraced platforms of creamy green blue waste pumped out from the mines. It reminded me a bit of the old 'blue billy' contamination I've seen in the UK. And yes, apparently it contains stacks of cyanide!

And then we made it! The Morning Star project. And what a place! But that's for another blog...

Getting late...

You might think from the timing of this post that we'd be in some far flung place, sunning it up and all the rest of it. But in fact, we're still in Shrewsbury, just about packed, and the DIY is definitely something we want to forget! At least it's less than 10 hours to departure now, and perhaps we'll sleep better on the overnight flight to J'berg.

It might be a good time to introduce you to one of our travelling companions. This is Doris the duck, who appeared out of the blue this Sunday evening, looking for a cheap flight round the world. We couldn't help but oblige (who can ignore such appealing eyes?). It's likely Doris will be making frequent appearances on photos on the blog, keep an eye out for her!

Next time we write, we shall hopefully be in South Africa. So till next time...

Nearly there...

If there is one thing I am not going to miss, it's the smell of white spirit.  This might seem a strange introduction to a blog concerned more with the experiences of exploring this big wide world, but at the moment, it's one thing I'll be glad to get away from.  Don't get me wrong, DIY can be fun, but when you have a week left before you leave on a world trip, and all you seem to be doing is cleaning the roller with copious amounts of white spirit and then scrubbing your fingernails with your wife's nail varnish remover whilst inhaling enough of the vapours to make you think you've landed on a set out of a Star Trek episode - well, things can't be quite right. But we're nearly there! So perhaps it is worth it.

So for now I'd better go and varnish that floor one last time.