Just one
I'm imaging that you've asked me a question: "Alex, can you show me a picture, just one, that best sums up the week you, Ruth and Phil have had in Malawi?"
Ah, that's tough! Just one? Can it be a video clip? No? OK - just one picture.
I could show you Home of Hope from the air again: a whole village complete with houses, schools, a college, dorms, a hospital (that's how the government now categorizes the Home's clinic, so effective has it become), where 25 years ago there was only scrub land and just one small building at the foot of the mountain, built as a place of prayer by an early missionary - and a bereaved family ready to treat abandoned and lost children as their own.
Perhaps you'd like to see the Farm again? The land lying ready to feed its children, cleared of the last harvest's stalks and set for sowing.
What about the things we brought? A laptop, perhaps - bizarre in all its incongruence just kilometers from where villages stand as simply as they did, oh I don't know how long ago: mud wall, rush roof, vulnerable to shock. Bizarre yet completely essential.
Our Vision Board? Full of daring and hope - the dreams of people prepared to sacrifice to see them realized.
A little child? The traditional fund-raising shot? When you've been here you'll be angry too, the next time you see the "flies in the eyes" photograph. Africa is anything but a continent where people sit helpless. It's vibrant, optimistic, inventive - and exploited. [I've deleted quite a long rant here. For another time, perhaps.]
What picture, then?
This young lady was brought to Home of Hope age 3 months. The photograph is one taken just this morning, by the friend with whom she has a tailoring business in Dedza, south of the capital Lilongwe. She was at Home of Hope all through her Nursery, Primary and Secondary schooling, then attended another Technical College to learn her trade. (Today she could study that course on site at the Home.) She's sitting behind her new $100 sewing machine, excited about plans to take on apprentices next year to build up the business. She wants some tailor's dummies to better show off the clothes they are making.
The picture is of independence - Home of Hope's whole aim. What that looks like will vary from young person to young person. Some stories will involve laptops. Others' will feature mig-welders, trowels, buttonhole attachments. All will rest upon thousands of days of nurture and education from dedicated folk - from night guards to nurses.
It's our privilege to play a small part.
If you'd like get involved with the work of Home of Hope, you can
- Join me as a volunteer at Home of Hope in August 2023, or find out how to support our project
- Sponsor a child at Home of Hope, or give a one-off donation
I look forward to hearing from you.
Alex.
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