Reflecting Upon Little Seeds Work in 2004
This is part of a newsletter from Nigel and Heather Drury, now in Mpumalanga Province in South Africa (Heather is Pam McCallum's daughter). Their mission to train the Africans to help themselves in work with children and young people goes from strength to strength. If anyone would like to know more about their work, please see Pam McCallum, or look on the Little Seeds website (www.littleseeds.co.za).
It's all about the individual person:
At Little Seeds Trust in White River, South Africa, we now have a team of 10 plus various professionals and friends that offer their services for aspects of training. Through these people we see that a big difference can be made by focussing on the individual. The important little things' properly attended to unlock a future of greater possibilities.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta once said the following:
'I never look at the masses as my responsibility. I look at the individual. I can love only one person at a time. Just one, one, one. So you begin. I picked up one person - maybe if I didn't pick up that one person I wouldn't have picked up 42,000. The whole work is only a drop in the ocean. But if I didn't put the drop in, the ocean would be one drop less.'
A year of remarkable growth in Little Seeds.
Over 600 people have been through Little Seeds courses during the year. That's enormous! Of those 315 are per-school teachers. About half of our work now concerns HIV/AIDS related issues, and
the psycho-social support work has mushroomed. It has been demanding work and our whole team has been stretched and developed, but no one has resigned! Rather, our trainers have been singing praises at what has been possible. Particularly uplifting for them has been the involvement with over 100 teenage orphan 'heads of household'. Those children have been so encouraged through the courses that we have run for them, thanks to the backing from three different donor sources.
The mess the world's in!
Death and disease, social ills all around us. Up to 35% of the adult population infected by HIV in some districts of our province; a rapid rise in the number of AIDS orphans. We can so easily become discouraged by all of this. Yet, if we seek God's perspective it all changes. The manifestations of a fallen world are actually opportunities for God's grace to be seen more clearly, his love in action through people. Then we see something beautiful amidst the anguish.
'It is better to fight for the good, than to rail at the ill.'
Alfred Lord Tennyson - Maud (1855)
Tennyson declared that we are not called to bemoan the evil we see around us but to fight for the good. This message resonates in scripture. For example in Philippians 4:8 'Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things.'
Christmas is about a new hope.
Through the work of Little Seeds in Southern Africa we have been so encouraged that hope can be brought to very difficult situations. The orphans find that they are not abandoned, there are people who care, and that there is a Heavenly Father who is above any earthly one. A Father who says 'I want to adopt you into my family and give you hope and a future, an inheritance.'