So we had our first day at Belfast.  I don't think any amount of preparation could have prepared me for what we encountered.

The Home Based Carers (HBCs) - volunteers who give up their time every day - were at the compound and gave us a very warm welcome.

The compound, which had been built last year, was in a sorry state.  The fence was only complete along one length.  Just about everywhere else had been torn down.  Thankfully the posts were all still there, although some were wobbly.  They had been put in very well.

Before we came we had been hoping to help them move along the borehole project.  The plan is to put a borehole in the compound that will be available for the community.  This is a major investment, and would enable the Hands at Work team to create a vegetable plot, and therefore be able to provide better care for the people they care for.

I think Mark (Pastor and team leader) has asked to put the borehole on hold until the fence can be re-established and proven to be viable.

So the first priority once again is to get the fence rebuilt and hopefully not torn down again.  No-one is admitting liability for it’s destruction but it is likely to be any one of a number of the local herdsmen who came through later on in the day today with their goats.

So we were welcomed and we had a brief time of praise and prayer in the tiny one room brick building that had been built since the last team visited a year ago.  It was amazing to see the joy these ladies had in the midst of such dire poverty.  After this we broke into three teams to go off and do some home visiting.
We visited a number of people in their homes, or rather seated on benches or plastic chairs outside their homes (usually under a tree).  The HBCs simply talked with the patients about how they were and we were asked to pray for them.  They have such expectation of what God can do for them, and personally I felt completely inadequate, but, we took the plunge, and prayed.

And so it went, visiting people one by one.  The last visit was to a very sick young woman, Gloria (about 30?) who was clearly dying of Aids related TB.  Her brother was looking after her, but there was little he could do as he was unemployed and therefore had no money.   She would be leaving behind two children.

Another team went to visit someone, only to be ushered away.  A woman had been bed ridden, and during the night half of the roof of her house collapsed due to the rain.  She had been moved to another building, so the team went there, only to find that she had just died.  The family then walked in to discover the news.

Later on we visited the creche where approximately 50 small children are cared for by three women.  Last year they had absolutely nothing to occupy the children, and I don't think things have changed much.  There weren't that many children there  by the time we got there, but after a bit of coaxing the children were less scared of us, and we began to play outside.  Some of the team drew simple pictures in the sandy soil.  One of the creche workers gathered the children together and they sang a few songs for us.  We sang them a song (with actions) which I don't think they were much impressed with, but the ice was broken.
More of the same tomorrow!

They had been having huge amounts of rain over the last month, below is a fuel tanker stuck having tried to turn around in the sandy muddy "road".