Lindiwe's Friends

Moved to new address

2009-11-25T14:51:00.002-06:00

I’m home! From now on you will need to go to http://leannehardy.net/blog.htm if you would like to continue following my blog. I look forward to hearing from you there.

Reading just for fun?

2009-11-21T07:03:00.002-06:00

The after-school program at Tembisa Baptist Church doesn’t have the sponsors that Arebaokeng has. They aren’t even sponsored by the church, which charges rent for the use of their old building and office space in a converted house on the property. But they run a crèche and feed a hundred children a day. Friends from Grace Baptist Church, Kempton Park, continue to visit one morning a week to

St. Francis Nursery School

2009-11-19T02:47:00.002-06:00

This week I returned to St. Francis Nursery School in Boksburg. I used to read there regularly back in 2006 and 2007. I turned the project over to a colleague when I went to the States for a few months. That colleague has now returned to U.K. so I thought I would stop by to see if anyone would like a story or two. The children were in the yard when I arrived. As I approached through the

Stimulating Minds in Alex

2009-11-14T07:52:00.000-06:00

“Why do we read?” I asked the combined fifth-grade classes at Rose-Act’s Saturday’s Cool. This supplementary educational program for grades five through twelve serves the desperately poor township of Alexandra, near Johannesburg. “To learn new things,” a boy said promptly, and I knew this was going to be a fun class. “To find out about the world,” another said. “To learn to spell.” “It

Joy in Alex

2009-11-13T03:12:00.002-06:00

I drove right past the Johannesburg College, Alexandra Campus on London Road. The slum of Alex stretched to my right. Warehouses rose along the road to my left. When I was sure I had gone too far, there was nothing to do, but turn around in the crumbling lot of a business and retrace my route through the heavy traffic. Believe me, I was saying a lot of prayers! But I found it. The security

Back at Arebaokeng

2009-11-11T04:07:00.002-06:00

The Arebaokeng community project has a crèche (daycare / pre-school) and an after-school program for children who have lost parents to HIV/AIDS. When I lived in South Africa, the children were cared for in an old house. The dining room/classroom was a garage. On cold days the little ones crowded into a tiny bedroom with no furniture. When it rained, the center had to close because the

Musing on Litt-World 2009

2009-11-09T03:49:00.003-06:00

Litt-World 2009 is over. Last week I: pondered the implications for my WIP (work in progress) of novelist Davis Bunn’s workshops on writing the breakout novel. took avid notes on the process of editing from a gifted Filippina editor, Yna Reyes. lined up three possible workshops where I can teach skills to Africans who want to write for the children in their communities, including one in Kisumu

Litt-World 2009

2009-11-01T06:00:00.003-06:00

November 2004 I sat on a beach in the Philippines pouring out my passion for stories for children affected by HIV/AIDS to David Waweru of Word Alive Publications in Nairobi, Kenya. We were both attending the Litt-World Conference sponsored by Media Associates International. Litt-World is a bi-annual conference for Christian writers and publishers from the majority world. My conversation with

The Danger of a Single Story

2009-10-21T11:24:00.002-05:00

"How do you find African books to read to the children?" my Zimbabwean friend asked when she accompanied me to Tembisa Baptist Church. I suspect she had grown up on the same kind of books as Chimamanda Adichie. Adichie, a Nigerian short-story writer I am anxious to read, articulates so well part of why I am concerned with providing African children with books in which they will see themselves

Sunshine and Rain

2009-09-29T03:22:00.008-05:00

Sunshine and rain. It takes both to produce a rainbow like this. We were cruising south from Kirkenis, Norway, far above the Arctic Circle. The ship sailed between rocky islands and the spectacular mountains of the coast, entering the occasional narrow fjord. Mostly we saw the heavy clouds typical of this time of year. My husband would have been disappointed if we hadn’t had one day when

Guest blogger: Kay Strom

2009-09-21T09:23:00.031-05:00

Today is my birthday. I am reminded by our guest blogger to fall on my knees once again and thank God for the precious family he gave me. I hope you will join the Salvation Army in their 4th Annual International Weekend of Prayer and Fastingfor Victims of Sexual Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery Stolen Identity by Kay Marshall Strom Enormous eyes in a bony-thin face, and a baggy green

Discerning Teens

2009-09-14T15:30:00.003-05:00

My friend, Kim, and I have been sharing and praying for each other’s families for almost ten years now. She recently wrote to share her concern about a current film. I haven’t seen this film myself, but I value Kim’s discernment. She writes: I am writing to you today about something very important that God has put in my heart and the Holy Spirit has urged me to share with as many people

The Challenge of Self-publishing

2009-09-08T16:58:00.004-05:00

So I took the plunge. After long resistance, I signed on with Booksurge to self-publish a novel. That means Crossovers should be available by Christmas after languishing for years in the proverbial drawer, rejected by publishers who don’t think they can sell a book about a boy who figure skates. Why did I resist? Self-publishing means the author takes on not only the financial responsibility

Skating Values or Kingdom Values?

2009-08-01T16:27:00.000-05:00

Every culture has its core values, standards and expectations. Those values need to be examined and not just assumed, especially by those of us whose first loyalty is to the Kingdom of God. Last weekend I plunged again into the figure skating world I talked about a couple weeks ago when I attended my first camp—two and a half intensive days of on-ice and off-ice classes that left me both

An Afternoon Tea Party

2009-07-24T13:57:00.000-05:00

My daughter sells wonderful loose-leaf tea from a company called Lets Do Tea. Wednesday afternoon I hosted a tea party for ladies from my church. We sat on the deck with china teacups and plates of cucumber sandwiches and lime curd tarts and tasted different flavors of tea. “Am I supposed to just swish it in my mouth and spit it out like wine?” Joyce asked. I assured her

Another culture

2009-07-17T14:25:00.000-05:00

A few days after leaving the sci-fi/fantasy world of Convergence I plunged into yet another “world within a world”. I skated my Adult Bronze tests that qualify me for the Adult Nationals figure skating competition in Bloomington, Minnesota, next spring. No torn fishnet stocking or flowing wizard capes here. I saw more blue velvet and silver sequins. The hairstyles were

Cross-cultural in the USA

2009-07-10T08:41:00.000-05:00

In case you haven’t noticed from this blog or my books, I am interested in different cultures—another time (Glastonbury Tor), another place (The Wooden Ox, Beads and Braids), another world in the midst of the familiar mainstream culture (Crossovers, my unpublished skating novel.) This weekend I plunged into yet another cross-cultural experience when I went with my daughter and family to

So what is J. S. Bach writing these days?

2009-07-02T09:01:00.000-05:00

I have long lamented the lack of time for all the things I would like to do. I once took Betty Edward's Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain onto the hills of Mpumulunga and spent enough time to know that I didn't have the patience. But photography! If I had another lifetime... If I could take pictures like the ones in National Geographic...I was somewhat disappointed when our daughter did

Handling Feedback--Try It; You'll Like It

2009-06-19T09:48:00.000-05:00

The hardest suggestions to take on my writing are the ones that call for major rewrites. Often they mean abandoning favorite passages or whole themes. They take lots of time and may reshape the story in ways I'm not sure I want to go. My first reaction may well be "No way, Jose." Those are the times when I put the manuscript in the proverbial drawer (these days that's a computer file) and sit

Handling Feedback--Note the Source

2009-06-12T09:47:00.000-05:00

"What do you do when you start struggling with feedback you've received?" my friend asked. If I believe in my story, I will use suggestions to make it better.There are some reader suggestions that I reject outright. I am good at grammar, thanks to my eighth-grade English teacher. When a reader puts in commas that don't need to be there or changes all the condition-contrary-to-fact subjunctives

Handling Feedback--Believe in Your Story

2009-06-07T09:43:00.000-05:00

A friend taking a writing class recently asked, "What do you do when you start struggling with feedback you've received?" As I get used to a new critique group--people I'm just getting to know, whose writing I am not yet familiar with--it is a question I am looking at as well.A writer has to balance two concepts: the need to believe in herself and her story, and the fact that if she doesn’t

More than Christian Bobbsey Twins

2009-05-29T14:25:00.000-05:00

Sometime in the mid 1990s when I attended one of my first writers' conferences, the speaker in the children's track made a statement something like, "Christian children's books are now every bit as well-written as those found in the secular market."My mouth fell open, and I had to bite my tongue not to ask, "What books are you reading, lady?"To be fair, modern books for children in the Christian

The Value of Children’s Literature for Twenty-first Century Africa

2009-05-23T10:25:00.000-05:00

[Someone recently asked me for a copy of this article, originally published in Today in Africa magazine, February 2005. I thought others might be interested in the motivation behind my work reading with African children.]“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. ” Jesus used stories to make his point--The Good Samaritan, the Lost Sheep, The

Gaining Perspective

2009-05-15T06:58:00.000-05:00

My husband had his gall bladder removed this week. He spent an evening in emergency a couple weeks ago in Madison, Wisconsin, halfway between home and board meetings in Chicago. Gall bladder symptoms look a lot like heart attack and within two minutes of walking into a local clinic they had him in an ambulance, dissolving nitroglycerin under his tongue.He had had a similar attack the previous

White Gowns and Roses

2009-05-09T11:16:00.000-05:00

On a warm evening in early June thirty-four girls in white formals with armloads of red roses walked down the aisles of a neo-gothic church in Indianapolis, Indiana, and received our diplomas from Tudor Hall School. When the ceremony had ended and the last echoes of John 14:27 had faded beneath the vaulted stone ceiling, we tearfully handed out our long-stemmed roses, one by one, to family and

Nine Hundred is less than 12 million

2009-05-02T09:16:00.000-05:00

"This is the only time in the year when we have the whole school together," the alumni coordinator told me when she asked me to speak. "There will be students from age four through seniors in high school.""How many?" I asked, wondering how I could handle the age span."About 900.""900? 900 kids ages four to eighteen?"She didn't tell me that I would come after several other speakers in the

Needed: another Nelson Mandela

2009-04-17T09:20:00.000-05:00

Elections will be held next week in South Africa. When we lived there in the 1990s the country was a budding democracy brimming with hope. Newly-elected President Nelson Mandela encouraged people of all races to form a rainbow nation that would work together for peace and prosperity. The bid for the 2010 soccer World Cup grew out of that dream.But cynicism has obscured the rainbow. Political

Granny Evelyn

2009-04-14T09:14:00.000-05:00

Alexandra Township outside Johannesburg, South Africa, has little in common with the Northwoods retreat where I now live. I used to think it was so crowded nothing green could grow there, but this picture shows there is at least one, no, two trees in the area. In the background is one of the notoriously violent hostels built to house workers brought from the African homelands to the city to

Like a weaned child

2009-04-10T07:25:00.000-05:00

"Do my eyes look funny?" I asked my husband."No," he said.I wasn't sure if that was a relief or not. The lids felt puffy, and when I ran my finger across them, the skin was rough. Were they red? It's hard to see your own eyelids even in a mirror. Maybe it's just part of the aging process. Most people don't think I look as old as the calendar says I am, but after all I am... never mind.I had

Babies

2009-04-08T14:33:00.000-05:00

I had forgotten how tiny a newborn is. My new grandson swims in the smallest onesie. He waves his little fists in the air, not yet coordinated enough to get them to his mouth to suck except by chance. He scrunches up his eyes and opens his mouth to search for the nipple. His vulnerability melts my heart.He already made his first trip to the library. Big Sister has been part of a play group/

New Pictures

2009-04-06T17:09:00.000-05:00

I have added pictures to some of my March blogs. Take another look at Refilwe, Picture Books and Macaroni and Cheese, and Alexandra Grannies.

Imelda's

2009-04-03T10:54:00.000-05:00

One day last week I went back with Ruth to Imelda's in Alex. We took cakes to serve a group of businessmen coming to look at the grannies support project with a view to getting involved financially. While Ruth and Imelda talked in her small combination living room and kitchen, I enjoyed the sunshine outside. I counted eight doors opening onto Imelda's courtyard. Ten doors opened into the

Refilwe

2009-03-30T04:24:00.000-05:00

Refilwe means 'gift' in the Tswana language of southern Africa. The name also describes a Christian children's home north of Johannesburg. Some of the children are orphans, some are half-orphans and some have simply been removed from difficult situations by the state.Refilwe is run on the cluster foster-home plan. Carefully screened godparents bring their own children to live in one of the

New Life

2009-03-28T10:24:00.000-05:00

It is in those major transitions of life that we missionaries most miss being 'home.' I remember my heartbreak when my grandfather was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. I missed his funeral and that of my grandmother. I also missed my brother's wedding. I was present two years ago when my first grandchild was born, holding one of her mother's feet while her husband held the other and she

Picture books and Macaroni and Cheese

2009-03-26T09:55:00.000-05:00

Two local grocery chains supply soon-to-be-out-of-date food to the Rose ACT programs. Wednesday Ruth brought a large cardboard box of frozen macaroni and cheese dinners from Pick and Pay to the grannies meeting. The Wednesday grannies are more in number than the group I met with at the Baptist church. There were 24 ladies and one gentleman. They usually meet under a sheet of plastic stretched

Ubulhe Pre-school

2009-03-21T01:58:00.000-05:00

The children were still at lunch when I arrived at Ubuhle Pre-school with Poppy, the Tembisa children's librarian. We sat on small wooden chairs in the main room. Through an open door we smiled at forty or more children seated at low tables, eating samp (hominy grits) and beans from bright plastic plates. As they finished, they came to greet us. First came three little girls. They were

Letting Go

2009-03-18T01:28:00.000-05:00

Years ago in Mozambique my daughters were concerned about the girls across the street who had no toys to speak of. We went through our things and chose some toys to give away. The neighbors were thrilled, but my daughters were upset later when they saw their former toys left out in the rain and not cared for. Nusha and her sisters were used to doing wonderfully creative things with leaves and

Saturday's Cool

2009-03-16T04:47:00.000-05:00

"Saturday's Cool" their T-shirts proclaim. If you say it fast, it sounds like something your kids probably want to avoid. But four hundred and fifty learners grades five to twelve are eager to participate in the Rose-ACT tutoring program run on the boarder of Alexandra Township by Rosebank Union Church, Hurlingham, South Africa. There's even a waiting list of a hundred and fifty to pay the fee of

Alexandra Grannies

2009-03-14T03:00:00.000-05:00

There was a line hundreds long outside the Alexandra fire station."That will affect numbers at the grannies support group," my SIM colleague, Ruth Maxwell, told me as we drove by. We suspected the government was handing out food packages and making sure everyone knew which party was in control of this bounty before next months elections.Sure enough, numbers were down. Eventually six older women

Back to Tembisa

2009-03-12T08:51:00.000-05:00

Africa. It's never quite what you expect. I arrived in Jozi Tuesday evening exhausted from two long flights. Wednesday afternoon I headed to Tembisa. I knew my way. I've been to Tembisa Baptist Church dozens of times. But that place by the train station where I always leave the asphalt to follow the dirt road along the tracks to the church--they're paving it, and there is no way through. Paving

Reading with Grannies

2009-03-07T15:26:00.000-06:00

Why should an African grandmother raising children orphaned by AIDS bother to read to them? Next week I'm returning to Johannesburg, South Africa for three weeks. I'll be visiting the two after-school programs in Thembisa where I read books when I lived there. I'm anxious to see how the library bins I left behind are being used as well as to spend time with all my young friends. Hopefully I can

New Writing Blogs

2009-01-06T11:41:00.000-06:00

Christmas is over; the new year has begun. I am typing this on my old PC (not the new, hand-me-down Mac), and I still don’t have an office to work in. (The builder will be here next week!) But it is time to get back to writing more regularly. This fall I have produced so little that I have been ashamed to call myself a writer.Some of you have shared with me from time to time your own desires

Not in South Africa anymore

2008-12-18T12:56:00.001-06:00

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas. Brazilians stick cotton balls on their trees. South Africans spray 'snow' in the corners of shop windows to simulate what they see of the Northern Hemisphere. But this year we get the real thing and lots of it. It was twenty-four degrees below zero Farenheit last week. (That's thirty-three below Celsius.) Today feels almost balmy at ten above (negative

Jesus and the sick children

2008-12-03T13:47:00.000-06:00

A few months ago a community nurse in Malawi wrote Hannelore, the children’s ministries champion for our mission (SIM), asking for pictures of Jesus with African children. “I work as a community nurse,” Helen wrote, “visiting the sick and handicapped in their homes...around Blantyr, Malawi.... About one quarter of my patients are children, some of them orphans, some are handicapped, and some are

Thanksgiving

2008-11-23T15:55:00.000-06:00

This coming week is American Thanksgiving, a harvest festival that remembers those who came to this country for religious freedom and honors the indigenous people who reached beyond their cultural comfort zone to help them adapt to their new home. (Hmm. That sounds like it should lead into a challenge to reach out to immigrants in our neighborhoods, but it doesn't.)You don’t need me to tell you

International Bazaar

2008-11-15T19:37:00.000-06:00

“That one, Mom. Beads and Braids. Buy that one!”Friday night we held a bazaar in the fellowship hall of Faith Missionary Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. Various booths were set up with goods we missionaries had brought from around the world. Participants had to get a ‘passport’ and insert ‘stamps’ from the various countries represented. They exchanged U.S. dollars for GICC (Global Impact

Proud to Be an American

2008-11-08T20:10:00.001-06:00

Tuesday, November 4, I was the first person in Jackson Township to cast my ballot. I have voted before, although not in every presidential election. We were disenfranchised a couple times because of postal systems that didn’t get absentee ballots to us in western Brazil, and later, Mozambique until too late to return them on time.What moved me most in this election was the first-time voters—a

Being grateful

2008-11-03T14:18:00.000-06:00

When is it easy to be grateful for a major leak in your basement water pump?1) when you are home (as opposed to being away for weeks or even months...)2) when you have just ripped out the old carpeting and the new hasn't yet been installed.When is it easy to be grateful for a flat tire?When you find it Saturday morning instead of Sunday morning on your way to church and your granddaughter's

Who's at risk?

2008-11-01T10:52:00.000-05:00

We were out to enjoy the autumn leaves on the last nice day before the weatherman told us rain and high winds would strip the trees. The sky was blue and the air was crisp as we drove along the edge of town toward the park by the river. “Down this way—” My mother-in-law pointed to a short street that ended abruptly on a bluff overlooking the park. “—there’s a cul-de-sac where kids come to

God is still on the Throne

2008-10-26T15:32:00.000-05:00

The reason we were in UK in September was Steve’s meetings with Langham Partnership, the trust that uses the income from John R. W. Stott’s books and other donations to provide books for majority-world pastors and seminary students, hold preaching workshops and scholarship future church leaders from around the world. The meetings were held at Farnham Castle, the seat of the bishops of Winchester

Return to Wales

2008-10-19T15:13:00.000-05:00

According to the date my digital camera attaches to my photos, it was the tenth of November, 2007 when I drove my rental car down the one-lane road between the hedges into the Llantony Valley in southeast Wales. That day I said to myself, “This is it. This is where Colin Hay is from.” I was spending three weeks in Wales researching a sequel to my novel Glastonbury Tor. At the end of that book

Proud moments

2008-10-12T08:29:00.000-05:00