Day Ten

Late Fragment

And did you get what

You wanted from this life, even so?

I did

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved,

To feel myself beloved on the earth.

-Raymond Carver

We are at home in Malungeni and attended the funeral of Spiwo's nephew, Mthobeli Xapile.  The funeral celebration was in the Community Center and was well attended by family and friends.  We joined the community as Mthobeli was laid to rest in the family burial plot. We invite your prayers for the Xapile family as they continue to heal from the death of yet another family member.

We are relieved and grateful for our reconnection with the Itipini community.  It would have been impossible for us to to not returnand respond to their severe food shortage. Upon our second visit in two days, we were overwhelmed to learn in this relocated community there are 200 people living in 29 two room units with no electricity, 4 water spigots and 2 toilets. Each unit held two families, the largest family being 18 people. The rooms were approximately 10' by 12' large.

We were able to determine there is some leadership in terms of a committee lead by a 17 year old girl. With this committee and our AIAIA team we were able to organize an orderly and much appreciated distribution of food.  It was noted by an elder as we gathered for prayer that the community had never experienced such a gift. He further mentioned that other groups have come and gone and never returned, thus attributing to only further deepen the hopelessness of the community.

Arm In Arm In Africa is willing to recommit to this community and will not further their feeling of abandonment.  Our efforts in the future will be known as the Itipini Relocation Project.  It is our hope and our intention to link future food distributions to the already existing food distribution program in Malungeni.

It was somewhat of a somber trip home this evening to Malungeni to have experienced not only the challenging at the completely unjust setting in which people were expected to live. A lasting memory and a reason to make a commitment was seen in the smiles and the waves of gratitude as we pulled away.

Living In Love

"There is a desire within each of us, in the deep center of ourselves that we call our heart.

We were born with it, it is never completely satisfied, and it never dies.

We are often unaware of it, but it is always awake.

It is the human desire for love.

Every person in this earth yearns to love, to be loved, to know love.

Our true identity, our reason for being, is to be found in this desire...

Love is the "why" of life: why we are functioning at all, what we want to be efficient for...I am

convinced it (love) is the fundamental energy of the human spirit, the fuel on which we run, the wellspring of our vitality

And grace, which is the flowing. creative activity, of love itself, is what makes all goodness possible.

Love should come first; it should be the beginning of and the reason for everything."