As the curtain closes on 2010, I find myself mentally reviewing the year at Heavenly Haven. And wow, what a year! In all the time that I’ve been involved with community projects, this last year was certainly extreme in every way. If we could draw a graph, the ups would be really high, and the downs would be dismally low.

The year started with losing our primary vehicle in January. The result of this was that we had to cancel all our camps and activities during the year, as we had no way of transporting the children. This also affected our training, since many of the adults we train, live more than 25km away from where we are, and have no transport of their own.

As with everything, we had to learn to adapt, and we did this successfully. We trained fewer adults, and ran shorter courses. We focussed on smaller groups of children and built stronger relationships.

The country, in fact the world, was crunching under one of the worst recessions ever. Many projects around us closed their doors. We persisted, and searched for alternate ways to continue with Heavenly Haven. Doom prophets cautioned us against staying open, yet we could not find it in our hearts to shut down. What about all the ground we had gained? What about our credibility with the people with whom we worked? If we also let them down, when would they trust again? What about FAITH?

The miracles started happening. New people took hands with us, and supported when and where they could. Food became more plentiful. Clothing came in for our families. Much-needed warm sheets and blankets took care of the freezing winter.

Today I look back with tears in my eyes. It was worth it. We often went to bed hungry, and so did our families. We often stood shivering out in the cold, feeding soup and bread to grateful children. We went without electricity for days, shutting down the training, because there simply were no funds for electricity. We couldn’t run any of the sewing machines, or the stoves. We were often not able to drive anywhere, because the fuel gauge showed empty. Someone would come and give some money, saying it was for fuel, without us even asking for it!

December is closer to home, and it has brought its own miracles.

We were worried about enough food for the children, and someone heard our call. Non-spoilable food was transported more than a 1000km’s across South Africa – enough to feed all our children for two months!

We were worried about bread and vegetables – a local supermarket gives us enough for our families twice a week, and a local bakery supplies us with bread for the children’s sandwiches.

We were worried about fuel expenses and food content for the Christmas food parcels for our families. Out of the blue, we got a call from a group of bikers who wanted to help. We managed to give the best food parcels ever, abundantly filled with nourishing, delicious food.

A group of people called from a neighbouring town, and hosted an unforgettable Christmas day for one of our groups of children. They received a Christmas message and spent all day having fun on the water. They were surrounded by loving adults who gave them more than they ever received – not only in gifts, but also in love, and in care.

We launched our annual street Christmas party, with not enough toys and no idea of what we were going to do. Halfway through one of our sponsors called from George. He wanted to pop in for a visit, and had a boot full of toys. Could we use it? Exhilarated, we handed out more than enough toys to eager, grateful children.

Do we still worry? Yes, of course. We are, after all, only human. But we’ve learnt a valuable lesson. Whatever the worry, there WILL be a solution. There are people out there who support what we do. There are people out there who want to help. And most importantly – there are people out there who know that together we can and will make a difference.