September 07

PHAKAMISA’S TRIBUTE TO GRACE NDLOVU AND ALL THOSE WHO LIVE POSITIVELY.

“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,

 That saved a wretch like me,

I once was lost but now am found,

Was blind but now I see”. 

 The words of this hymn resonate with Thobani, aged 3.  His surrogate mom, Grace, quite literally DID save a wretch like him. 

At 18 months old he weighed 4 kgs (10 lbs). He was too weak to sit and had not met any of the childhood developmental milestones. His mother had died and Thobani was orphaned, homeless and desperately ill, with stomach TB and several HIV AIDS related opportunistic infections. Without hesitation, Grace agreed to foster him and make him part of her family.  It was touch and go for this little man for one long year,… but Grace’s graciousness saved him….simply by loving him.

Five years ago, Grace Ndlovu joined Phakamisa, both as a Caregiver and a bead worker.  She attended a few workshops, but then we did not see her for a couple of months.  One day, an emaciated woman, whom I did not recognise, knocked on my office door and asked me to pray for her as she was very ill with HIV AIDS.  It was Grace!  Her own personal journey of grace and faith was to deepen.

She started the Anti Retro Virals (ARV) programme and gradually her health returned.  Aside from the orders she received for beadwork, Grace had no other source of income, BUT she did have a steadfast faith in the graciousness and love of her God, which overflowed into everything she did. 

She and her husband had 8 children of their own and fostered 4 orphaned children.  They all lived in a tiny 4 roomed house.  The 4 younger children slept in one bed and others curled up on the floor.  Their cramped, restricted living conditions did not deter Grace from taking various children in crisis into her home for brief periods when they needed it.

A church in the USA heard of Grace’s gracious compassion and plight and generously extended her home, by building 2 dormitory- type rooms.  Rather than there being more spacious accommodation for the family, Grace used it to extend her offer of grace-filled love to the unemployed, the dying and the unloved- enabling ‘the lost to be found and the blind to see’.

Grace was a mother to everyone- in her own quiet, indomitable, way she encouraged those who had given up hope, to learn to do beadwork or to join her Caregiver support group and even learn to grow vegetables. Life was to be celebrated through the Grace of God.

Grace was a founder member of Phakamisa’s Tholuthando HIV AIDS support group. She encouraged those who were HIV+ve to focus on ‘living positively’ not ‘being HIV+ve’.  What an example to all of us.  She, who was ill; she who had a very sick child to care for; she who frequently did not have food to place on the table; she who could only travel to collect her ARV treatment if she had received money from her beadwork sales,… was the champion of living positively!

For the past 6 months Grace’s health deteriorated, but she would often be seen with Thobani or other sick children, walking to the bus at 3 o’ clock in the morning, so they would be in the front of the queues at the hospital or clinics- nothing was too much trouble for her!

In her testimony, which appears in Phakamisa’s “Life is Worth Living” presentation, Grace tells us, with a quiet confidence and assurance that: “God is a great thing, because God has done great things in our lives.  We must trust God because He is the First and the Last. (She) I took treatment, but the best treatment is to ask God about our lives.  God is the Doctor of Doctors.  We must know that…….. GOD….IS….GOD- He is Alpha and Omega and God helps us very much.”

“Through many dangers, toils and snares

I have already come,

God’s grace has brought me safe thus far

And grace will lead me home”.

On 30 August 2007, our precious Grace was finally led home to perfect rest and peace with her Lord after she had lived her life sharing the Grace of God with all whom she met!

“When we’ve been there 10 000 years,

Bright shining as the sun,

We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise

Than when we first begun.” Isaac Newton

Phumulakahle Grace! Rest in peace.

Glenda Howieson

September 07

PHAKAMISA’S TRIBUTE TO GRACE NDLOVU AND ALL THOSE WHO LIVE POSITIVELY.

“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,

 That saved a wretch like me,

I once was lost but now am found,

Was blind but now I see”. 

 The words of this hymn resonate with Thobani, aged 3.  His surrogate mom, Grace, quite literally DID save a wretch like him. 

At 18 months old he weighed 4 kgs (10 lbs). He was too weak to sit and had not met any of the childhood developmental milestones. His mother had died and Thobani was orphaned, homeless and desperately ill, with stomach TB and several HIV AIDS related opportunistic infections. Without hesitation, Grace agreed to foster him and make him part of her family.  It was touch and go for this little man for one long year,… but Grace’s graciousness saved him….simply by loving him.

Five years ago, Grace Ndlovu joined Phakamisa, both as a Caregiver and a bead worker.  She attended a few workshops, but then we did not see her for a couple of months.  One day, an emaciated woman, whom I did not recognise, knocked on my office door and asked me to pray for her as she was very ill with HIV AIDS.  It was Grace!  Her own personal journey of grace and faith was to deepen.

She started the Anti Retro Virals (ARV) programme and gradually her health returned.  Aside from the orders she received for beadwork, Grace had no other source of income, BUT she did have a steadfast faith in the graciousness and love of her God, which overflowed into everything she did. 

She and her husband had 8 children of their own and fostered 4 orphaned children.  They all lived in a tiny 4 roomed house.  The 4 younger children slept in one bed and others curled up on the floor.  Their cramped, restricted living conditions did not deter Grace from taking various children in crisis into her home for brief periods when they needed it.

A church in the USA heard of Grace’s gracious compassion and plight and generously extended her home, by building 2 dormitory- type rooms.  Rather than there being more spacious accommodation for the family, Grace used it to extend her offer of grace-filled love to the unemployed, the dying and the unloved- enabling ‘the lost to be found and the blind to see’.

Grace was a mother to everyone- in her own quiet, indomitable, way she encouraged those who had given up hope, to learn to do beadwork or to join her Caregiver support group and even learn to grow vegetables. Life was to be celebrated through the Grace of God.

Grace was a founder member of Phakamisa’s Tholuthando HIV AIDS support group. She encouraged those who were HIV+ve to focus on ‘living positively’ not ‘being HIV+ve’.  What an example to all of us.  She, who was ill; she who had a very sick child to care for; she who frequently did not have food to place on the table; she who could only travel to collect her ARV treatment if she had received money from her beadwork sales,… was the champion of living positively!

For the past 6 months Grace’s health deteriorated, but she would often be seen with Thobani or other sick children, walking to the bus at 3 o’ clock in the morning, so they would be in the front of the queues at the hospital or clinics- nothing was too much trouble for her!

In her testimony, which appears in Phakamisa’s “Life is Worth Living” presentation, Grace tells us, with a quiet confidence and assurance that: “God is a great thing, because God has done great things in our lives.  We must trust God because He is the First and the Last. (She) I took treatment, but the best treatment is to ask God about our lives.  God is the Doctor of Doctors.  We must know that…….. GOD….IS….GOD- He is Alpha and Omega and God helps us very much.”

“Through many dangers, toils and snares

I have already come,

God’s grace has brought me safe thus far

And grace will lead me home”.

On 30 August 2007, our precious Grace was finally led home to perfect rest and peace with her Lord after she had lived her life sharing the Grace of God with all whom she met!

“When we’ve been there 10 000 years,

Bright shining as the sun,

We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise

Than when we first begun.” Isaac Newton

Phumulakahle Grace! Rest in peace.

Glenda Howieson