This is a leap year.  This odd 29th day in an oddly short month. Our Gregorian calendar records 365 days in a year. This is all good and well, except that it takes the earth 365 days, five hours, 48 minutes, and 56 seconds to make its way around our sun. So, there’s this little bit of time to account for and we make room for these hours every four years. As I write this, it is the 29th day of February, 2024. What to do with this odd, unique, extra day? A calendar causes us to see time as destinations on a linear scale. In reality, time is travel; a voyage through space. Our life is this ..read more

  A NEW BEGINNING Zimkhitha is a preschool teacher for the Fountain of Hope preschool in the Western Cape of South Africa. For Zimkhitha it is an emotional experience to see her 6 year old students from last year in their new school uniforms and going to “big” school. She is proud of them. She looks forward to a new beginning each year, meeting the new students and getting to know their personalities. The first few weeks are bumpy as the children tend to cry for their mom when they are dropped off at school. They soon settle, she says, and learn to enjoy each other, their new environment ..read more

January is always a very busy month for our team.  At Orchard: Africa, we use the last quarter of a year to do our strategic planning, which means that come January, a lot of those plans get implemented. Some church partnerships will roll off our funding cycle this quarter and new partnerships will begin. There is a lot of planning and processing that goes into this cycle. Preschool curriculum sets were packed and made ready for the opening of preschools in mid-January. Seedlings were harvested, ready to take out to villages. Food for the feeding projects was delivered. Meetings were hel ..read more

I was five years old when I saw the fairy. Her light was shining golden in the dark foliage, flickering on and off, on and off. I made myself as small as can be and tip-toed closer so that I could see her face and wings and perhaps even her magical wand. Suddenly, from out of the darkness emerged a dozen more fairies. I turned tail and bolted straight to my mother sitting on the camping chair close to the fire where my dad was making our dinner. I sat on her lap and told her that too many fairies frightened me. She stroked my hair and told me all was okay; that they were as eager to see me as ..read more

To be clear, the worms were not in the food. It’s the bucket the food came in that became a vessel for the worms.  One of the most important parts of growing food at Orchard: Africa is the worms. Long, red, wiggly worms are like gold to us. They eat discarded scraps of leaves and whole foods and turn it into the world’s best organic fertilizer.  From the poop (yes, we said it) of hundreds of worms, a “tea” is made. Not for us to drink of course, but to pour into the soil where our vegetables grow. This worm tea is what makes the soil rich in nutrients that the plants absorb and tran ..read more

After a year of fighting cancer, my sister passed away one week ago at the time of this writing. She was the older sister of us three girls. She was my mother’s wild child and my father’s freckled child, the one who looked just like him. She was my rock. My person. My older sister who I would follow relentlessly as a child. A huge chunk of who I am has gone away with her. In the middle of this disorienting grief and sorrow that I am experiencing, I think of the sisters and brothers and parents and children who have died in the Israel/Gaza war. I sit in the quiet of night and I think about the ..read more

Every year South Africans celebrate Heritage Day. It is a day to remember our cultural heritage and the diversity that makes up our nation.  This year Orchard: Africa sponsored a heritage celebration event in Khayelitsha. We gathered local partner churches and, together, celebrated through dance, music, poetry, and speeches. The dancing and the singing had everyone’s toes tapping and the colorful traditional outfits were inspiring.  We were especially blessed by adding one more cultural group to our day. A mission team from the United States joined us, representing their herita ..read more

I grew up without television. The apartheid government firmly controlled the South African broadcasting company and deemed the “little black box” a threat to their ideology. Television only came into our homes when I was a teenager, which meant that the radio played a vital part of my childhood entertainment. I would rush home after school, grab my snack and camp out on the carpet in our living room to listen to the next installment of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe. The idea of entering another world through thin veils found in our world fascinated me and listening to the dramatized rad ..read more

Ayler Msolo is a natural artist. Growing up, he loved being creative.  As he got older,  he knew that he needed to work and provide for his family. Ayler came up with a great way of using his creative side to earn a living – being a barber.  Cutting people’s hair gave him an outlet that made him feel good and his clients look good. Although his clients were delighted with his services, they were young and unemployed which did not make for a great business model. Through his pastor, who is part of the Orchard Network, Ayler was invited to attend training at the Orchard: Africa I ..read more

The world is on the cusp of transition. As I look out my window here on the southern tip of Africa, I see that winter is receding. The bare limbs of trees hint a bright green at their edges. I know that within a couple of weeks they will be in the full bloom of spring. In the northern hemisphere, the dog days of summer have curled up to sleep as autumn, with its vigor and crisp energy, turns the landscape orange and brown and yellow.  Pumpkin and apple and warm spice will soon dominate our senses. The world is also on the cusp of another kind of transition. We are stepping away from the ..read more