May Update

link to newsletter:  http://eepurl.com/yU7SX

LSU Tailgate Party (for everyone in or around Baton Rouge)

Rotary District 6200 will be hosting a tailgate party at the LSU Tiger Stadium West Parking Lot this Saturday.  Center-folding the "Tailgating Party" will be a reminder of New Orleans's Rue Royal flanked on either side by Jackson Square and Cafe du Monde serving their famous beignets.  Bring tents, folding chairs, food and drinks to spend a fun day with RI President Tanaka. Let’s show him how we have fun in South Louisiana. Join the crowds under the BIG tent for music, football pools, Rotary Spirit and cooking contests, photos with RI President Tanaka, and lots of fun.
The Baton Rouge - Capital City Club will be sponsoring the "ROYAL BOOKSTORE / ART GALLERY." Rotarian and author/artist Jacques Royal introduces "LOUISIANA HISTORY AND HERITAGE at it's BEST" through his 4 bilingual (English & French) books, pen and ink drawings and photography. Take home autographed books, beautiful photographs, and limited edition prints of Louisiana Plantation Homes and French Castles (Chateaux).
Next door at "THE ROTARIAN", shop and wear T-Shirts designed by J. Royal. Browse through handmade bags and seed jewelry from Swaziland, Africa. Several young LSU art students will have a variety to choose from. JIMMIE JULES' JAZZ BAND from Reserve, La. will encourage foot stomping and dancing in the streets. The more money you drop in his buckets "JAZZIER" he will play.  100% of profits from sales at the capital City booth will go toward two projects:  ROTARY FOUNDATION HEART OF AMERICA SAVE SWAZILAND CHILDREN DONOR ADVISED FUND, which will purchase 4 acres and 30,000 sq. ft. of buildings to provide a medical clinic, community and jobs-training center and store fronts to lease for sustainability and locally the BATON ROUGE CENTER FOR WORLD AFFAIRS.

LSU Tiger Stadium West Parking Lot this Saturday
$20 per vehicle (no limit to occupants)
Party and contests from 2 PM to 6 PM

 

Favorite Verses

He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.  Galatians 3:14
We are honored and privileged to be able to be here in Swaziland and do what we do.  We are thankful for the support and prayers of everyone who makes it possible.

Crawfish

We are catching about 17kg of fresh crawfish each week so far from the Mbuluzi River and from several ponds/dams in Tambankulu.  This has been with only 2 traps and minimal effort so far.  We are selling to Mountain Inn, Calabash and several private parties.  We are expecting this income to cover the cost of a full time nurse!  Our major limitation is our inability to process the live crawfish in Maphiveni.  The land we are waiting for an opportunity to purchase in Maphiveni would provide us a place to begin a business incubator where this and other business ideas could have an opportunity to develop an economy here in the lowveld and to also help fund the outreaches we operate.  Please consider donating towards the land purchase!  Follow this link to donate through PayPal or check: http://www.kudvumisafoundation.org/RDAF/HowToContribute.asp

Public-Private Partnership with SNAP

Our discussions with Swaziland National AIDS Programme under the Ministry of Health continues.  We purchased a lockable metal cabinet and an air conditioner unit for the CHIPS office in Tambankulu.  Storage of antiretrovirals requires a temperature controlled environment.  In the summer, it gets so hot in the office that the computers shut down; way too hot for the drugs.  Teresa is discussing the training and medical requirements with the Director of SNAP.  Our goal is to begin providing ARV refills locally to the HIV+ patients we currently transport 50 km.  Please agree with us for favor so this can happen as quickly as possible. We have budgeting challenges to overcome to be able to do this properly:  full time nurse (see crawfish above), the replacement van (Rotary grant process is in process), and a mobile clinic vehicle.

501c3

Kudvumisa Foundation USA Inc. was registered last year in July. We are still waiting on approval from the IRS on the 501c3 status.  So a published 90 day evaluation time was a little on the hopeful side.  But the good news is that applications put in a month before ours have now come through, so we should be really close!  This will change how we receive personal and project funds and make it more cost effective for us (smaller percentage going towards administrate fees, more towards the projects!).  We will announce this as soon as it it happens!

Prayer Requests

We met another young lady at the national TB Hospital while we were visiting Thobile who desperately needs prayer and encouragement.  Nomcebo is probably in her late twenties, has been receiving daily injections for TB for four years and has been basically incarcerated at the hospital for that long.  She  is tired.  She helped us in translating when we visited with Thobile and we had plenty of opportunity to pray with her.  But the daily and seemingly endless grind wears even the strongest down.  She has seen countless come in only to die (including Thobile).  Please join us in trusting God for healing in her disease racked body: restoring her lungs and strength to her legs.  Please join us in prayer for encouragement and strength in a dark place. Our God is a good God.  He only desires the best for us: to walk in healing He has already provided.  We sometimes fall so short and are passive instead of fighting for the things that are by right ours.

Swaziland Update: New Patient Van, Crawfish, Marula Nuts and More!

http://eepurl.com/xp14n

SNAP UPDATE:  We are working with SNAP (Swaziland National Aids Programme) under the Ministry of Health for a Public-Private Partnership Agreement that will allow us to provide ARV (drugs to control HIV) refills and initiations in the communities we work in.  This will be a unique opportunity in Swaziland to pilot and roll out a vital mobile service to the rural and isolated HIV population Kudvumisa Foundation/CHIPS serves.  There is progress!
Our first of two requirements to meet are appropriate drug storage.  This requires about $1500 for air-conditioning and lockable cabinets for drug storage.  Second, we will also be needing a full time nurse to work in the targeted communities.  We would be most grateful for a volunteer nurse, but if not, we will be required to fund the salary of the nurse, which is one of the highest gazetted salaries here in Swaziland (about $1000/month) .  If you can help in either of these two needs (or know someone who can) please contact us!

CHIPS Patient Van Replacement

Thanks to everyone who attended the March 9th fundraiser at the Old State Capitol in Baton Rouge.  It was a great success and the process has begun to apply the funds to a Rotary International Future Vision grant for the patient van replacement.  We're hoping to have the funds here mid April and the new van mid May.

Good Friday

This from Isaiah 53 is especially appropriate today:
¹ Who has believed our message
    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
² He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
    and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
³ He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

⁴ Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.
⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

⁷ He was oppressed and afflicted,
    yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
    and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
⁸ By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
    Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
    for the transgression of my people he was punished.
⁹ He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
    and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
    nor was any deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰ Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
    and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
    and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.

We are honored and privileged to be able to be here in Swaziland and do what we do.  We are thankful for the support and prayers of everyone who makes it possible.

Crawfish

While our attempt at middle veld crawfish farming has been slightly less than successful so far, with the introduction of decent traps, there are several people catching Australian Redclaw Crawfish now in the low veld Mbuluzi River in Maphiveni and the dams and canals in Tambankulu and Vuvulane.  We delivered our first shipment to a hotel/restaurant in Mbabane.  We are hoping they will come through with a 10kg per month standing order to start.  This is a great start in an economic development project which will contribute to combating poverty in these areas and will contribute to the sustainability of the CHIPS outreach.  This picture is from the Mbuluzi.  Thokozane, a friend of ours from Evusweni in the middle veld, just placed a trap.  He thought I was kidding when I said there are hippos and crocodiles in the river.

Marula Nuts and Shells

We take delivery of a screw press next week to press oil from marula nuts and moringa seeds.  Another experiment in creating income in the impoverished areas we work in.  If successful, we hope to be able to provide affordable nutritious cooking oil to the informal market while creating an income opportunity for people in our areas from a readily available natural resource that is discarded now.  We are using the marula shells to manufacture fire starters as well.  These have met with great enthusiasm form the people who have tried it.  All these if successful contribute to an economy in Maphiveni and Vuvulane and the the sustainability of our outreaches here.

Daran in Baton Rouge and Baltimore

Daran will be traveling to the States for two weeks in May.  His first week will be in Baton Rouge coinciding a May 4th Rotary fundraiser for the purchase of land in Maphiveni for a clinic and community eduction center.  More details will be forthcoming on the fundraiser.  The last week will be in Baltimore to visit Gabby.  Though the trip is short, he'd love to meet with our supporters in these two areas (and anywhere in between) if possible.  Email us and we can work out the details.

Update on Thobile

Late February Thobile succumbed to numerous bouts of TB and finally MDR-TB and the subsequent treatments in addition to years of being on treatment for HIV.  We won't know and I guess it doesn't matter at this point what was the final straw.  She died the day after receiving a major blood transfusion for a major decline in her condition.  Her mother had visited her that morning and was on her way back with juice for her.  Teresa was heart broken.  Daran and Joelle went to the funeral and was given a chance to speak to the small gathering about the impact Thobile had had on many people's lives and for her love of Jesus.  She wasn't here anymore in pain or suffering: she was in the presence of the Lord she loved.  Thobile would have been about 21 years old.

Sewing Skills Trainer - Australian Volunteers International

Sewing Skills Trainer

Australian Volunteers International advertised a volunteer position to work with our group of wonderful ladies in Vuvulane!  Great news/potential for the sewing project in Section 19!

Update on Thobile

View our last newsletter at http://eepurl.com/uXYUf

Thobile is "interred" in the National TB hospital:  She has been feeling better.  Last week when we visited, she came walking out to the car dancing and saying, “Mommy, I am very, very hungry!”  I was so thrilled to see her up and around and hungry, all good signs.  I brought her food, treats that she likes, like white bread, corn flakes, chips, yogurt, juice, full cream milk and fruit.  She gets food at the hospital but it is tasteless and sometimes too heavy for her to handle.  Then I got a call this week that she was feeling poorly again, weak, and pains all over the body.  So I am not sure if it is another setback or the flu.  At any rate, she still needs much prayer!  TB in this country is becoming so difficult to treat!  I can’t take her out of the hospital until she can stay well and I know she wants to get out.  Please pray for complete healing in her little body, mind soul and spirit.  It is so difficult to be in this institution.  I was told that the girl that was in the bed next to her, died last week.  She is such a strong little one, I know that God has a plan for her life.  She is a prayer warrior too, she loves the Lord!

There is also another young girl who is 15 years old that has been admitted to the TB hospital last week.  She is very sick, unable to feed herself, take her meds, and too weak to walk to the bathroom.  When visited the day after she was admitted, she was found lying in her urine, shaking from chills and high fever, her medications were spilled on the floor, and her food was sitting there untouched.  Her medications for HIV had not been given to her yet and it was 11:30 am.  These medications should be taken at the same time every morning and every evening, which should have been much earlier in the morning.  Unfortunately, the care in this institution is not up to par.  The patient load and the severity of these patients is very high and there are not many nurses or nurse assistants.  So I know this must be very difficult, not to mention the risk to the nursing staff of contracting the multi-drug resistant TB.  This is just a difficult place to be, especially when you can’t care for yourself.  So I am also asking for prayer for this little one who is so sick and so helpless.  We know that God cares for those who can’t help themselves.

I would like to request prayer for is Nomcebo Treasure, who has been helping us with interpreting for Thobile since she has been in the hospital.  She calls me when Thobile needs something or informs me when she is not doing well. Nomcebo is a precious lady who also loves the Lord very much!  She has great faith even when things aren’t going well for her.  She has been on TB treatment for 3 years and still doesn’t seem to be getting better.  When I told her that I had asked people from all over to pray for Thobile, she asked, “Oh, please ask for prayer for me too!”  The doctors are telling her that she has some holes in her lungs where the TB is hiding and that is why it is so difficult to treat.  So I told her that I would ask our friends to prayer for her complete healing as well.

I can’t tell you how many times I have visited these precious ladies and I have been down about some little circumstance in my life and been so encouraged after visiting with them and seeing their joy and faith in the Lord even in the midst of their dire circumstances!  Praise God, we are here to be a blessing, but we are so blessed by His people here!

Also I want to update you about Khanysile, our lady that is in the sewing program that was so sick and in the hospital.  She is doing much better, she is home and back to sewing, praise the Lord!   Thank you so much for your prayers!  We are very excited about our team that is coming in just 2 weeks to be with us to do medical clinics and construction out in Vuvulane and Maphiveni!

Teresa in the States

Teresa in Baton Rouge and Baltimore

Teresa will be traveling to the States for the month of March.  Her first two weeks will be in Baton Rouge (coinciding with the fund raiser- see previous post or view our last newsletter at http://eepurl.com/uXYUf ) and the last two weeks in Baltimore to visit with our oldest, Gabby.  Though the trip is short, she'd love to meet with our supporters in these two areas if possible.  Email us and we can work out the details.

Baton Rouge Fund Raiser

Our latest newsletter can be viewed by following this link:   http://eepurl.com/uXYUf

The Rotary Club of Baton Rouge Capital City

"Reaching Out For A Cause"

Old State Capitol, 100 North Boulevard

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Saturday, March 9, 2013

6:00 - 7:00 Wine and Light Hors d’ oeuvres - Silent Auction       7:00 - 8:30 Concert

Featuring

National and International Musicians

Baton Rouge Ethnic Dancers

Runnels School String Orchestra

 

Proceeds Benefit Baton Rouge Center for World Affairs Promote Baton Rouge through education, international economic development, and cultural awareness initiatives. The Possibility Project – Baton Rouge (formerly City at Peace) Empowers teenagers to create safe, peaceful, and productive lives, and communities, using the performing arts and community action as vehicles. The Teresa and Daran Rehmeyer Kudvumisa Foundation Project Baton Rouge natives, Teresa and Daran Rehmeyer, need a replacement bus to transport patients to distant medical facilities in Swaziland.  They have been serving since 2005.

 

Tickets: Adults $25  Students $15

Checks Should Be Payable To: Reaching Out For a Cause (ROFC)

Tickets Are Available at the Door

For Tax Exempt Donations Make Check Payable to:

Rotary District 6200 Foundation

Designated to:  Reaching Out For a Cause (ROFC)

Mail to:

Rotary District 6200 Foundation

11616 Southfork Ave. Ste. 300

Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70816-5241

Contact: Pat Robinson at 225-335-0322 or robinpat2004@yahoo.com for information.

CHIPS Transport

CHIPS (Children's HIV Intervention Programme Swaziland) makes two to three trips to Good Shepherd Hospital in Siteki from Vuvulane/Maphiveni per week.  Here is a typical trip (this was from this Tuesday):

   Macethuka:  3 for ARV refills

   Section 19:  1 for ARV refill the 2 for re-initiation on ARV's

   Maphiveni:  2 sick (to see doctor) and 3 ARV refills.

CHIPS starting a trip to Good Shepherd

CHIPS khombi in the cane fields

This is eleven people who would have no hope of battling HIV without CHIPS.  Our khombi (van) is on it's last leg (axle).  We also make numerous trips during the year for unscheduled transport to Good Shepherd or other clinics for baby deliveries and emergency transport for very sick CHIPS clients.  We are at 66% of the funding we need for a replacement.  Please pray with us for provision.  If you could help, follow this link, but please send us a message that the donation is for the khombi!  God Bless!

January Newsletter

Rehmeyers/Kudvumisa Foundation Swaziland Update
January Newsletter!

Sindi from Section 19 with her purses

Kudvumisa Foundation - CHIPS Outreach 2008-2012