Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

In February this year I visited S.Africa as part of a mission team through Missionary Ventures. I visited the Nhtuse Day Care centre in Tzaneen where a wonderful woman by the name of Jane does amazing things with little funding and even fewer resources.

The day I visited there were 25 children at the centre out of approx 50 children who normally attend, this number has recently increased to 70. They were a very friendly bunch and very excited to see their visitors. What a warm welcome we received!

As we were shown around, it became apparent that this woman had almost nothing, and yet gives all of her time and effort to providing what she can for these children, to offer them food and an education, something that is not readily available or affordable for many in S.Africa. The heart Jane has for these children is incredible and it was deeply moving to hear how she manages day to day and to see first hand how little they have, yet still they smile and get on with it. All of us in the group were in tears, even the men. We just stood there with tears rolling down our faces and feeling truly thankful for the things we have and take for granted.

As I listened to Jane and watched her interact with the children, taking in their daily struggles and trying to process what I was witnessing, I knew something had to be done. This was after all only something you see on TV, right?  Wrong, here it was in front of me, I was facing it head on and I found myself asking  "what can I do?".

Whilst in S.Africa, I phoned home several times and spoke to my partner Alan about Jane and these children who needed our help. It's difficult to try and work out stuff like this during a long distance phone call, but as my time neared it's end, we committed to helping them. Alan and I agreed to become involved in helping to fund a feeding programme they were hoping to start. This has now begun and is still in it's infancy. It's a costly exercise and with the number of children rising it becomes a double edged sword.

A great boost for Jane and the children would be to purchase a stove. This would be a 4 ring gas stove, similar to what we would use for camping trips. Nhtuse is pretty remote and they have no electricity. At the moment the women either have to search for and try to carry wood up the hillside, over very rough terrain,or, buy wood and have it delivered, but this is very expensive. The men folk in this area are reluctant to help and sometimes the women, who do help, do not stay around for long.

We were invited to have lunch with the children, rice and tomatoes, as you can see from the pictures. It would be wonderful to provide fresh fruit and vegetables. We joined with them in eating with our hands and for a basic meal it was very tasty. But, I can only imagine the time spent preparing something that would take me about 20mins to throw together. They don't have the luxury of throwing some rice in a pan with nice clean boiled water from the kettle. They would have to source wood for a fire and water from wherever was close, they prepared everything by hand under the scorching heat of the African sun and were limited in even the equipment they had to carry out this unneccessarily difficult operation, I saw one wooden spoon, no serving spoons and one grater. When I can't be bothered cooking, I just phone a take-away, but if Jane and the women couldnt be bothered cooking, and who could be bothered doing that everyday, the children would simply go hungry. Praise God for people like Jane and those who help her.

Alan and I feel, therefore, that it is only fitting that we fast from take-away food, sweets, chocolate, crisps, biscuits, cake and other convenient snack foods that we often eat, not through hunger but through laziness or just because we can.  We will do this throughout the whole of the month of June and we will also go without one meal (probably lunch) everyday for one week in June (probably the 2nd week of June) in order that we might feel a fraction of how these children feel every day in life.

This sounds very easy but I know it is going to be a hard slog. I love my crisps and enjoy grazing on snack food, Alan is the same, but hey you never know we might just get used to going without and even feel healthier and lose a few pounds in the process. The money we would save from buying such food and snacks is difficult to work out to be honest, but we will put the money aside at times when we feel like a snack or a take-away and whatever we have raised will be added to this total.

This is such a worthwhile cause, I have never felt so passionate about doing something. I have sometimes picked up the phone and just paid a donation or put something in a collecting tin if it's waved under my nose, but never really stopped to think about what I'm giving to. When we see pictures on our TV screens, it's almost not real, we are not as easily shocked as we perhaps once were and so we find it easy to switch off. It is a whole different ball game when your staring at it, standing there in it and feeling it for what it is, it's even further compounded when a name is attatched to these faces that normally stare at us from our TV screens, these faces are real people and they are needing our help. So please dig deep and donate now. Nobody should be hungry.

I will keep you all updated on our progress and struggles and I ask that you pray for us to reach our target and give potentially the gift of life to these youngsters.