Swazi 1000

Soccer games in a thunderstorm … vice-grip hugs from small children … walking through the clouds on Emlembe … praying at 03:00am … there are so many Divine moments that make up an experience like Swazi 1000.

Our two precious weeks in Bulembu flew past in a whirlwind of activity, and the Swazi 1000 team look back on fourteen days of God-given grace.

“In retrospect, we’ve done more than anticipated,” said Swazi 1000 projects manager, Gerhard Viljoen. “We were less volunteers than last year, and our daily working hours were shorter, but the amount of work that has been done is phenomenal,” he added.

The following is a summary of what was completed in the natural, but this is just the tip of the iceberg compared to what the Lord did behind the scenes in the hearts of the Bulembu people and Swazi 1000 volunteers:

Dvudvusi Orphan homes: 20 orphans homes were partially renovated, and are now ready for finishing. This included breaking down internal walls and windows, taking down old asbestos roofs to be replaced with tin roofs, scraping walls and cleaning out years of debris and rubble, as well as plastering and painting. Extensive bush clearing was done around the houses as well.

Bush clearing: Extensive cleaning and clearing was done in the village. This included cutting down alien trees and weeds, clearing bushes, removing illegal rubbish dumps, as well as cleaning trenches and roads.

Creativity centre: The entire school prepared and decorated their own glasses for sandblasting, which they could keep as Christmas gifts. A new canteen was set up, and murals were painted across town for all of the Bulembu enterprises. Creativity workshops were also held with the ladies of the community, and the Swazi 1000 volunteers helped to complete the costumes for the Bulembu Christian School annual Christmas play, which we watched on Thursday 10 December in the old Bulembu cinema.

Grass Planting: The new dairy field has been “furnished” with new Kikuyu grass.

Museum: The packaging and export area at the entrance of the cableway is now clear, clean and painted. Tons of wood and mangled steel was removed, and the area was cleaned with a high-pressure washer. It’s now ready to be transformed into a museum area.
Clinic: The building was scraped and repainted. The outside was done from the floor up to the roof, including railings, gates and windows, and the corridors and ceilings were painted on the inside.

These physical projects were supplemented by daily ministry projects, including time spent with the children at the Community Care Centre every afternoon, and ministry that focused on supporting and treating the housemothers who look after the Bulembu orphans. There was also a group of volunteers who dedicated their time to serve the housemothers and vulnerable girls in the Jacaranda Home.

“The housemothers could not stop talking about Swazi 1000 and how it amazing it was,” said Heather Davies from Bulembu Ministries. “The women said that, from watching the Swazi 1000 team, they learned a lot about love, and about showing love to one another, and they learned that showing a joyful attitude with the children goes a long way,” she added.

“They could not believe the servant hearts. That love is something they want to show the children. They were all unanimously so grateful. You cannot believe the impact you have had here,” said Davies.

“As a team we are extremely blessed for what the Lord has done through each one of us,” said Adriaan Adams, Director of Focus Team Leadership Training. “Many lives have been touched, and therefore the decision was made to return once again to Bulembu in 2010.”

Swazi 1000 2009 came and went, but the love of God that we shared with one another will remain a banner over Bulembu forever. We are looking forward to see how the journey continues.

Since a fat cow is a happy cow, and happy cows give creamy milk* the old Bulembu Golf Course has undergone a shift in purpose.

Last year the Swazi 1000 team helped with putting up the fence around the golf-course-turned-pasture, and this year the teams are making sure that the cows will be eating gourmet grass.

The process of grass planting pretty much entails planting grass. Grass is removed from around the soccer field at the bottom of the village, and then transported to the diary a few kilometres uphill. Teams dig holes, and replant the grass in-between other grass. Repeat process …

“We are actually planting a root, and not just something that will disappear,” said Lauren Morgan, Swazi 1000 volunteer from Stellenbosch. ”We work in partners so we get to really bond, getting exceptionally dirty from digging and planting in the mud. We made so many jokes, and it was so much fun. Probably my best day of work so far,” she added.

“We actually prayed for the grass,” said Domy Lin, Swazi 1000 volunteer from Johannesburg, studying at the University of Pretoria. “We prayed that that the cows would produce a lot of milk to feed all the orphans!”

The Bulembu dairy currently has about 30 cows that produce 250 litres of milk daily. The plan is to eventually have 200 cows, creating quite a significant dairy industry for the little border town.

*this is not a factual statement ☺

Swinging pick-axes, shovelling dirt, debris and years of overgrowth with spades, unloading heavy wheelbarrows, in the blazing sun, with a view of the rolling green mountains and the village below … this is all part of a days work when you are tasked with bush clearing around the soon-to-be Dvudvusi children’ homes.

The teams have been busy on the houses for three days, and already all the bushes around the houses have been cleared, and most of the internal demolition has been completed. Some of the building and plastering has also started.

There are already twelve beautifully restored houses where orphans are currently living with their care givers, and the vision is to eventually have 60 renovated homes.

“We are actually ahead of schedule,” said Stan Rudman, project leader for the Dvudvusi project. The plan is to complete seven houses by the time Swazi 1000 leaves Bulembu. “We are clearing the overgrowth around the houses, breaking down internal walls and building new ones, taking off the old roofs and putting up new ones, putting in doors and windows, as well as plastering, painting and tiling,” said Rudman.

The therapeutic aspect of this backbreaking work is to see how quickly a house transforms from a dilapidated structure into something that will be able to provide a home for eight orphans and their housemothers when all the renovations have been completed.

“What’s cool about this project is that you can see the changes on a daily basis,” said Valerie Hoph, one of the Swazi 1000 volunteers. “It was so humbling to work alongside the Swazi’s who joined us in clearing the debris and rubbish around the houses,” she added.

When a piece of overgrowth comes loose, with root and all, there is a deep sense of satisfaction. As with our the issues of our hearts, the trick is to get the roots out.

If Primi Piatti hadn’t coined the phrase “work is love made visible”, it would have been the perfect slogan for Swazi 1000, but over 200 eager volunteers aren’t kept occupied in a constructive way by just “letting them loose” on the community.

For this reason, to enable us to have a maximum impact in serving the community of Bulembu in the time that we are here, the Swazi 1000 experience is structured around various work and ministry projects. These projects were launched today, after months of meticulous planning, following a walking tour of Bulembu this morning.

This year, the focus is on six main work projects, and three ministry projects.

Since the vision of Bulembu is to be able to care for 2000 orphans by 2020, one of the important projects of Swazi 1000 2009 is the renovation of numerous orphan care homes in the Dvudvusi area of Bulembu. Teams started today with hardcore renovations, breaking down walls, building new ones, painting and landscaping, creating a space that orphans can call home.

When new children are brought into the Bulembu orphan care programme, they are cared for at a welcoming centre for a period of two months before they are placed in homes with care- takers. Some of the teams will be helping with renovations at the welcome centre, as well as spending time with some of the children currently living there.

Teams will be doing renovations and minor infrastructural reparations at the Bulembu clinic. At the newly established dairy, teams are getting their hands dirty by planting grass, and a set of rotating teams are continuing with the hard work of landscaping around the homes in the village, a project that was started at last year’s Swazi 1000.

At the Bulembu Creativity Centre, ladies from the community are working on various arts and crafts projects that supply the Bulembu gift shop with beautiful curios. Rotating teams will be spending time with these ladies. They are helping out with the making of costumes for the Bulembu Christian School Christmas play, as well as presenting art workshops. They will also be painting murals around Bulembu, assisting with the branding of the various enterprises. A herb garden was planted today, and the Bulembu canteen was prepared to be launched while we are here. Teams will help with the making and selling of hotdogs, waffles, coffee and tea, and various other yummy snacks (like lemon meringue tart…) at the canteen during the day.

A group of ladies are spending their two weeks in Bulembu at the Jacaranda children’s home, where girls who have been abused are cared for.

Another exciting project that teams are working on is the clearing of the area that used to be the place from where the mine ran its 22km long cable car. The cable car is the longest in the world, outside of Europe, running all the way to Barberton in South Africa. Once the space is cleared of the debris left behind by the abandoned mine, it will function as the Bulembu Museum, used to preserve some of the fascinating artefacts that give glimpses of Bulembu’s interesting history.

“All the teams are slotting into their different projects. The volunteers are all very eager to get started, and the work kicked off at a rapid pace,” said Swazi 1000 project manager, Gerhard Viljoen. “We think we might be able to do more than what we originally planned for our time here.”

We will be expanding on the different projects in more detail as the days unfold.