a broken heart

I’ve never been afraid to cry. I think that it has always helped me feel better. I’ll never forget the day that no amount of tears could ever fix my broken heart.
Jo and his wife met when they were on STMT (Short Term Missionary Training) at Hodygos. They fell in love and got married a couple of years later. Before either of them came to Christ they lived very different lives than after they gave their lives to His service. But because of the life changing message of Jesus, it didn’t matter. God had saved them both and they were very ready to start their lives together. They moved to the north where they continued to work for YFC. Later on they had a little boy, Joshua, he was their pride and joy. Jo and his wife would come to Hodygos every so often for board meetings and our annual summer camp, bring with them a whole troop of kids that wanted to know more about Jesus. It was always great to Jo’s smiling face and know the amazing work that God had done in is life. Then Jo got very sick. It happened so fast, I can not even remember all the details. He was fine one week, and on his death bed the next. Much prayer and intersession was done on his behalf, but God had a different plan and within a couple days, Jo was gone. Before Jo passed away my dad contacted his doctor and asked when we could have Jo air lifted to the capital city where there is better medical care. His doctor said it would not help, as Jo was dying of AIDS. Jo’s wife was pregnant at the time with their 2nd child. She and Joshua were both tested and were found to be HIV positive as well. Everything seemed to fall apart then. Jo and his wife also cared for many other children that had no where else to go, and suddenly the responsibility of all of this feel on her shoulders as Jo was gone. Jo’s wife, Pelgrina, gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and they named her Johanna. She was one of the cutest babies I’ve ever seen. I don’t know when and I’m not even sure how, but Johanna died when she was about 3 months old. Things came to a stand still then. I couldn’t possibly imagine loosing my husband and my baby within a time period of about 6 months. At the time my parents were getting ready to travel to England and live there for 6 months. As Pelgrina was in over her head with everything she had to do, my mom told her to come to the Christ’s Hope headquarters (which is my new home) and live with us, well live with me. My sister had left for college, my parents were leaving for England and I was getting ready to become an Au Pair. I was still at home and so Pelgrina and Joshua came to live with me. I remember seeing her for the first time and almost not recognizing her or Joshua. They had lost an enormous amount of weight, and when I held Joshua it didn’t feel like I was holding anything substantial at all. Joshua was pretty sick at the time. He had sores around in and around his mouth, and in his throat. He wouldn’t eat and he needed to in a bad way. I was working at the local pharmacy at the time and would come home to find them sitting at the kitchen table, Joshua still not eating and Pelgrina looking like she couldn’t go on. One evening I walked into our TV/my room (Pelgrina and Joshua got my room and I slept in my parents room, my old room was sectioned off for our TV area) to find Pelgrina sitting on the floor with Joshua in her lap, sobbing. I was 19 at the time, and I didn’t know what to do. I sat down on the couch and asked her if she was okay. She said, through many tears, that she didn’t know if Joshua was going to survive. In that minute, my heart broke. I didn’t know what to do or say, and instead of sitting there and crying and praying with her, I ran from the room. Tears streaming down my face I crumpled onto my parent’s bed and wept. Not cried, wept. My body shook with my sobs, I couldn’t stand to see this woman loose another member of her family. She was so strong, she was a beacon of hope, love and one of the most amazing women I have ever met in my life. When I woke up the next morning it felt like I had sand in my eyes. I got up and left for work. I worked at the pharmacy at the time and asked them for anything that we could possibly use to help Joshua get better. They gave me something that we needed to put on the sores in and around his mouth that would help it heal. To the grace of God, it worked. Joshua started getting better and eating again. I’m very convinced that Jesus heard our cries and prayers and saved his life.
Joshua and Pelgrina are doing very well. They are both healthy and living in Okahandja. Pelgrina is doing an amazing job, giving her testimony and telling kids about the very real disease that is HIV/AIDS. She is sharing her story in hopes that young people will come to know Christ and live their lives for him from a young age. Joshua is a fantastic little boy. I saw him again for the first time after they lived with me, about a year ago. He is a healthy, typical 5 year old boy with a smile that will light up your day.
There are more stories like this one, some that are known and some that still have to be told. I’ve had my heart broken on more than one occasion because of this crippling disease and it’s not going to end if we don’t do something about it. Be a beacon of hope and go to Namibia to teach our abstinence program called Choose to Wait. Pack your bags and help share the life changing message of Jesus Christ.

For more information please visit our website: www.christshope.org

The beginning

I guess the best place to start a blog is at the beginning. And there is a whole lot to tell. I’m 22 years old and I was born in Swakopmund, Namibia. (For the uneducated, this is in Africa, for the readers of celeb gossip, it is also where Brangelina had their baby) My parents are both originally from South Africa and moved to Namibia some 25 years ago to establish YFC (Youth for Christ) there. I can’t say as I remember much about living there as I was still very young when we up and moved to the capital city of Windhoek. I don’t remember much about living there either. Only a couple of memories here and there. Just before my 5th birthday we moved to the small town of Okahandja. It means: “the place where two rivers flow into each other to form one wide one.” I remember learning that from my 4th grade math teacher. I can’t possibly tell you why I remember that. Anyway, getting along in my story. I don’t remember when exactly but my dad initiated the building of the YFC training facility known as Hodygos, and that’s where we moved. It’s about 8 km outside of Okahandja. In my mind, this is where life began. When we moved there, there wasn’t much. My dad started it off with the idea of building 8 cabins. Each cabin housing about 8 people. There was an ablution block (bathrooms) that had men and woman’s bathrooms. Behind the bathrooms there were washing basins to do your laundry. If memory serves me correctly, we started living in cabin 3. It had a basin, but we had to trek a couple meters outside to get to the bathroom, not much fun when it’s dead of night and you’re only 5 years old, J. The memories of my younger years are a little few and far between. Hodygos (oh btw, hodygos means “leadership”) took off at an alarming speed. In addition to what I’ve already mentioned, they built a huge kitchen, a dinning/lecture hall, and later on our house was added on to this great building. As were some more bathrooms and my dad’s office that would later become my grandma’s apartment. Over the years Hodygos became an amazing place. Right now there are 3 different camp sites: site one, (where I lived) site two, (this consists of 6 cabins holding about 6 to 8 people each. These cabins have the bathroom in the cabin. There’s also a kitchen area and later on a chapel was added so that the people that rented out site 2 had a place to meet) and the tabernacle site ( the tabernacle cabins were built on the front side of the tabernacle (huge meeting are where we would have summer camp meetings. It was built because we had too many kids coming to camp. It holds about 600 to 700 people.) it also has a small kitchen.) A couple years after my dad had our house built we got…a SWIMMING POOL!!!! Where I spent many a summer, swimming, sun tanning and having a wonderful time with friends. I think one of the things I loved about living at Hodygos was that I was never alone. There were always people around. People who worker for YFC, campers, students, (later YFC started STMT: short term missionary training) kids from kids clubs, and of course people from around the world that would come to Namibia on missions trips. When I was 17 my parents started a new organization called Christ’s Hope International, working directly with people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS and we moved away from Hodygos. It was a sad day for me. I had to pack up, not just everything I owned, but many of the memories I had from living there as well. I will never forget Hodygos, it was the first place I ever remember calling home. I hope that one day I can get married in the chapel, at the place that will forever be etched in my mind as home.