Decide Nyathi is a 12 year old boy from the Ringetani Community Project, Mpumalanga.
Decide has been sponsored by Paula!
[ http://heart2heart.co.za/blog/?p=834 ]
Embroidered heart for Decide
Greetings! Hello! Malo! Sawubona! Dumela! Laotjhani! Ndaa! Avuxeni! Bom dia! Bonjour! Teanastellen! Lumela! Shallom! Hallo!
Do you feel helpless when you see the AIDS orphans on TV? Or a child who is dying of starvation? Do you feel the darkness and depravity of the world? Do you feel there is nothing you can do to change the world?
So maybe you can’t change the world, maybe you can, but who said you had to change the entire world? Why can’t you change one child’s world? Why shouldn’t that be enough?
I believe I can change the world for a 150 children this Christmas. I believe that a gift given in love and compassion will do so much to change a child’s world. And I believe I can, only with your help!
There are 72 children in The Valley of 1000 Hills, who have been orphaned by AIDS, who have food provided by Project O, and the only care afforded to them is that of their Gogos (Grandmothers). They have nothing, and are so grateful to receive even the most simple food once a month. And they make it last the time it must.
The Ringetani Community Project, situated in Mpumalanga, cares for and helps 1200 children up to the age of 17. This would simply be too great a task to handle at this point, which is why we have chosen one village, just one –for now- to do. There are 62 children under the age of 12, in the Somerset Village and they are so sweet. They have truly beautiful sprits and only looking at their photos shows us how little they truly have.
Ringetani and Project O truly do all they can for these children, from the Traditional Dance Group and Choir that Ringetani has developed to help raise funds by entertaining tourists at local B & B’s to the zero carbon foot-print homes that Project are building in the Valley across the dam from where I live, but there is rarely anything left over for Christmas. Imagine not being able to give your child, if you are a parent, or not being able to receive, if you are still a child or teenager, Christmas gifts. Now imagine the joy on a child’s face, a child who has never received a Christmas gift, as we hand over a gift hamper this Christmas. I think I would want that as a gift this Christmas. In fact I do.
We are not asking for a lot. Just go and visit our website please, [ http://www.hearttooheart.co.za/ ] and/or our blog [ http://heart2heart.co.za/blog/ ], and please pass this email on to all those on your contact list. Please don’t just delete this, I’m not promising good luck, just the chance to help someone who has nothing, this Christmas.
“Too often we live side by side, but don’t communicate Heat Too Heart…” ~ Thomas S. Monson
Give With Love This Christmas 2010
Thanks Always
Love
Jess
Email: jess@hearttooheart.co.za
Website: http://www.hearttooheart.co.za/
Do all you can
with what you have,
in the time you have,
in the place you are.
~ Nkosi Johnson
Nkosi passed away on 1 June 2001 from an AIDS related disease. His legacy lives on in all those who fight do something. We may not be able to save every child with AIDS. But don’t do it for those you can’t save. Do it for those you can.
Yesterday I received a very nice comment… From someone I’m not related to…
A lady from the US, named Paula, came onto the blog, and left a comment.
I was in a rather despondent mood, and I simply assumed it was more spam, as I had yet to figure out that you could view the comment in the alert email.
I open the blog in my browser, scrolled down to my log in button, put my log in details in log in box. And logged in.
There waiting for me was…:
“Hello Decide!
I couldn’t decide which of the many names to choose when I came to the Heart Too Heart Website, so I asked God to help me decide. I closed my eyes, and pointed my computer cursor at random, and when I opened my eyes, it was pointing at your name! So, to help me decide, God led me to you! I call that a gift from God, as you surely are!”
On Decide Nyathi, From Ringetani, By Paula Tohline Calhoun
From a total stranger! This in and of itself was of total amazement to me but as I instinctively opened my Heart Too Heart email, there waiting for me such a beautiful email, that it brought tears to my eyes! By the time my Mother had read it, both she and I were crying our eyes out.
We had our first sponsor! And just one was all it took to reassure us that what we are doing is right… And that this is what Heavenly Father wants us to do, and if we have faith, all things are possible. All things.
In the days between when the idea for the Heart Too Heart project came to life, and the days when it actually started to come to life (there were quite a few), I was bombarded by heart shaped objects of all kinds… from berries, to pizzas, to leaves! *Grin*
Let me explain. Lets start with the berry. I was out in the garden one morning, under the Mulberry tree, bare-footed, in my Pjs, with my hair down, picking the berries and eating them as I picked them. Now you need to understand it’s very rare for me to have my hair down, but I normally let it run wild (and when I say wild, I mean wild) in the morning. Afterward, while I was making my way into the house, I run my hand through the craziness that is my hair, and out came a rather large (for a berry) heart shaped fruit.
“MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. Of course my Mom came running, as she thought I was dying. But as I waved my fingers in her face to show her what had presented itself to me, she saw I was unharmed. Obviously I had to stop moving my hand. *Smile*
My Mom took this as a push in the right direction from Heavenly Father. She insisted we take pictures, and from this point she started pushing me to start my project.
Next came the pizza. One night while my Dad was making his famous home-made pizza, I was summoned into the kitchen from the lounge where I was doing something. There, my Mom and Dad were standing staring at my pizza with the biggest grins on their faces I’d seen since the day I got 9 A’s. Okay maybe they didn’t smile THAT widely when they got the 9 A report. =D
But there on the counter, was a heart shaped pizza…
Seriously. A heart shaped pizza. Now you think we’re really whacked. LOL. It tasted really good too.
By the time we’d seen heart shaped pizza, twice, and a heart shaped berry, a heart shaped leaf was bordering on creepy and I was convinced I was being stalked by heart shaped things, and the taking pictures got forgotten when we actually started the project, so no picture proof unfortunatly, but that leaf was what we really needed to start.
And now look!
We’ve completed 25 hearts officially, and we have a few more in progress…
These are a few recently completed hearts.
Laugh out loud!
Jess
Email: Jess@hearttooheart.co.za
Nathetile is a 6 year old girl from the Ringetani Community Project, Mpumalanga.
Deon is a 11 year old boy from the Ringetani Community Project, Mpumalanga.
Zolani is a 11 year old boy from the Ringetani Community Project, Mpumalanga.
Collight is a 10 year old boy from the Ringetani Community Project, Mpumalanga.
Liberty is a 10 year old boy from the Ringetani Community Project, Mpumalanga.
Embroidered Heart for Waterfall