40 Days of Prayer for Africa's Most Vulnerable & Hands at Work

Give ear to my words, O Lord; give heed to my sighing.
Listen to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you I pray - Psalm 5:1-2 (NRSV)

40 Days of Prayer is a special time when we can unite in prayer for the most vulnerable in Africa and the work that supports them. We invite you to join with us from February 18 - April 4th. Here's how:


Join the Hands at Work family around the world as we pray for 40 days on behalf of the most vulnerable children in Africa and our work to support them. As the body of Christ, we commit to coming together to intercede and bring hope to the hopeless.

Download the 40 Days 2015 Prayer Guide

Join our daily online event in the Hands at Work  Prayer Room, or join the Facebook Event where each day you will receive expanded content on the daily prayer point.

New Year New Beginnings

It is a new year and with a new year comes new beginnings. Each year in Hands at Work, God gives us a Watchword which we use to guide our year. This year, God gave us a word from Habakkuk which says “Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.” We took time in small groups to reflect on this together and individually. For us as Hands at Work this year, we will go through times of struggles and times of celebration, but God wants us to be reflecting on the times which he has stood by us. In the busyness of carrying out our daily tasks and lives, we can forget how faithful God is in the small things, but this year he is calling us to remember that. We are excited to see what this year holds for us as a family.

The Hands at Work family at the beginning of 2015

Over the past few weeks, Morgan and I have had time to recuperate before the beginning of the year which is always busy! We had time over the Christmas break to get settled into our new house and also host people on Christmas morning which was amazing. We love having the space to be able to host people and to be able to do this on Christmas morning was very special. We enjoyed a bring and share breakfast while opening gifts from friends and family. Later during that day, all of the Hands family came together at lunch to enjoy meat from the braai (South African barbeque). It is still very strange to celebrate Christmas in the hot weather but we shut the doors at night and turned the fan on full speed to try and make it feel a bit more like a home Christmas season.

Christmas Morning in our House

Even though the Hands offices are closed over the Christmas break, there is still work to be done, but we managed to keep it to a minimum and got some rest. A group of us all headed out to Mac Mac pools, a nearby waterfall and tourist site to celebrate Mel’s (one of our Australian volunteers) birthday. It was a very hot day and even though we put on sun cream, many of us still got burnt. The water was definitely refreshing on such a hot day. Also, during the break, we had Silo come to stay at our house. We spent time playing games with him, catching up and watching some films. He is still looking for a permanent job so please pray with us for that. We also have the chance to go to Kruger Park with our friends from Zambia and their two little girls. I saw wild dog for the first time in four years! And we had a great cheetah sighting.

In terms of travel for this year, we have not got much planned yet but God knows his plans for us and so we wait to see what they are for us. We are still currently waiting for my South African visa extension to be approved, so prayers for that would be much appreciated. In terms of our roles, Morgan will continue to head up our communications team who share our stories, updates and highlights from inside Africa to our partners, churches and friends outside of Africa. For myself, I will continue to work with our finance teams throughout Africa.

That’s all for now, but we are excited to share another years worth of adventures with you soon enough!

 Tommy

2014 in pictures

It has become a bit of a tradition for me, as I reflected on the past year to choose a selection of pictures that highlight it. As I look back on 2014 I can't help but count my blessings. I'm thankful for the opportunities we have had, the stories we have learned, our family and friends across the world, the continued privileged to serve the most vulnerable in Africa and His continued grace and strength.
 
Much Love! -M

i am a witness

Builds Itself Up in Love

We are back home in South Africa now. Before we left Zambia we had the great opportunity to facilitate and participate in two gatherings of Africa leaders and international volunteers. 

Maranatha Celebrations 

A part of Hands at Work’s holistic model of care in vulnerable communities across Africa is ensuring that our Care Workers are supported in their own personal growth and care. Our Care Workers are the men and women from local churches who have taken responsibility for the most broken, abused and neglected children in their communities. However, our Care Workers were once these children. They often have inner wounds just as deep as the children they are caring for. Through Maranatha Workshops, Hands at Work is extending to our Care Workers an understanding of the love and healing that can only come from Jesus. Now that each of our communities has participated in a Maranatha Workshop we gathered together to prayerful seek God’s will in the way forward. Our Lord Jesus came to show us the way forward in caring for our Care Workers, and the most vulnerable children across Africa. It was a privilege to stand side by side with some of the most humbling and inspiring men and women. It is in these times that I am so amazed and honored that God has chosen me for this calling.   -- M 

Bookkeeper Workshop
Our African Leaders who serve as Bookkeepers have come together in Zambia. Usually separated across five of the eight African countries we serve in, this week was a time to learn from each other and be together and united in their calling to serve the most vulnerable. We come together with our bookkeepers from all across Africa to share our hearts for the most vulnerable. We took time to fellowship with each other, have times of worship and hear our Father’s heart for the children of Africa, as well as have times of training. We read in Ephesians 4:16, ‘From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.’ It was a special time of growth for all of our bookkeepers, not only in their roles but also in their understanding of our calling.  -- T 

The Bookkeepers spending time in the community.

Some team building activities during Maranatha Celebrations

Serving communion during Maranatha Celebrations

To DRC and back

It has been a busy past few weeks for us! We have travelled to new countries and met many wonderful people.

We had the great privilege of visiting the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the middle of June. For both of us, it had been a long time coming. I have been working with our local office in DRC for over two years now and Morgan first dreamed of visiting the DRC back in 2006 after her dad’s first trip. One of Hands at Work’s core values focuses on relationships; this was the main purpose for our trip. To love, support, listen and build relationships with our brother in sisters in DRC. We were both excited to go but also a little bit nervous as the DRC/Zambia border is known for being difficult sometimes. Luckily we crossed the border very easily and met Erick on the DRC side. We still had a four-hour journey by car to Likasi where our office is located. Our time in DRC was very short, only 8 days so we tried to balance our time between the communities and the office. Hands at Work currently works in five communities in DRC in both urban and rural areas. We had the chance to visit two of those communities, Kitabataba and Kikula.

In Kikula, a home was recently renovated into a life centre for the local community. A life centre is the place in the community where children can come and feel safe and forget all the worries. It is a place where they receive one nutritious meal a day as well as life and love that they might not otherwise get at home. Morgan and I were some of the first visitors to see the newly renovated life centre in use. We spent the afternoon playing games with the children and Care Workers. As the

children where getting ready to leave for the day, we started off on a home visit. We walked home with a five-year-old boy named Paul. He lives with his father Etienne and his four-year-old brother Thierry. Their mother abandoned the family when Etienne got sick with TB. When we arrive at the house, we found that Thierry had not been at school that day because he had to go and fetch water. The closest clean water source is so far from their home that the boys have to take it in turns to collect water each day. Etienne is too sick and weak to be able to help the boys. The boys are falling behind in school and have to forgo a meal every other day to have clean water. We sat with the family for a while, before we left we prayed for them. Stories like Paul and Thierry are all too common in DRC, it is a place of great vulnerability and in need of lots of prayer.

Kitabataba was much more urban that we expected! We walked down dirt tracks and through busy markets lined with people selling everything you could imagine! In Kitabataba the life centre has recently moved from one local church to another. In the new location children received their food under a very simple structure made of wooden posts covered by a tarpaulin. Before we arrived at the life centre, we visited one home where we met Rosie and Joseph. Their older brothers were in their late teenage years and spent lots of time away from home working. It is often Rosie and Joseph at home by themselves and Rosie taking up the role of the mother of the house. Rosie told us she enjoys dancing and singing, just like any nine year old girl. Sadly she has no-one to help her with daily chores or homework and her life is often too busy to be a normal nine year old girl. We noticed that Rosie had many dishes in her garden piled up in tubs and it was obvious that it would take her a long time to do them on top of all her other tasks. The Care Workers, Morgan and I helped out by cleaning some of the dishes. The Care Workers showed Jesus’ love in action by helping Rosie and her family, you could see the big impact it has on their lives.

One of the big differences between DRC and our other countries is the language. In nearly all our other countries that we serve in, English is spoken to some degree as long as the local language.

However, in DRC, there is very little or no English spoken but instead it is Swahili and French. We took the opportunity to practice our French with the kids. It’s amazing how little language you need to connect with children.

The time we spent in the DRC was amazing! Our team in the local office is an incredibly dedicated group of men and women; they have such compassion for the vulnerable in their communities. We look forward to spending time with them again one day.

After our trip to DRC, Morgan hosted a team of nurses from all over the USA and Canada. We have a few of these specialized teams every year; they come to “be” as well as to care for the vulnerable in our communities. It was an intense week of home visits and mobile clinic days but God did something very special in everyone during this time.

The past couple of weeks, both Morgan and I have been busy with our quarter two reporting. It’s an opportunity to share with our partners and supporters about the work being done on the ground and what they are a part of. Morgan works on the narrative side and I work on the financial side. It takes a lot of gathering of information but it is worth it in the end to know that all our partners are receiving the up to date highlights and stories coming out of all the communities we serve in.