Lorentz Family Journey

  We are Kay and Holger Lorentz, and our journey as missionaries began in 1991 with several YWAM Schools.  After our wedding in 1995, we spent a total of four years in Texas.  Since 2000 we have been back in South Africa, where our work has had different focuses, but the central focus has always been on working with and for children in need. In 2014 we joined Globe Mission, and registered our Mercy Aids ministry as an NPO in South Africa. Kay has furthered her studies, gaining a diploma in counselling and specialising in adult education in cross-cultural spaces.  We continue to learn new things that add to the toolbox we have for the work we do. Currently we are involved in training adults in a variety of contexts, working in schools, supporting soup kitchens, gardening and other activities that promote, strengthen and support care for children in its broadest sense. For most of this time we were supported by individuals, churches, and organizations.  Our chil...

 I forgot that I had this other blog.  I started writing this one in 2013 as I was starting to work through what it was we were meant to be doing with our lives and with some of the dreams in our hearts at the time.  This blog is really a simple account of our narrative as a family.  The picture below is where this process led us to. So much time and life has happened in the last 5 years and finding time to blog was not easy.  I am not a very good writer, but I love writing.  I really think I need to use this blog to share of the things I have learnt about family through our life choices. Holger and I have just celebrated our 27 year Anniversary and one thing that is clear about us two is, that we have never just made the simple choice.  We chose hard and we are more aware than ever of the impact of that on our children.   I am going to spend more time here.  I think it is time to put pen to some of the stories of the things that have sh...

I have not blogged in a while.   It has been a crazy year that was filled with curve balls thrown at me and I was not always ready to bat.   However, I am still in the game! We are working with an organisation called Kin Culture and recently in collaboration with other foster/adoption organisations they launched the first ever WORLD FOSTER DAY.   The effort and the work done to promote it was amazing and I was blown away after years of working on Child Protection Week and other children’s campaign initiatives, how far this small little team were able to come and what they achieved. However, for me this day, this launch and this story was very difficult for me.   I was not sure at first what was going on in me.   I realised however at some point that I was in trouble, when by the famous May 31, 2018 in the early hours of the morning I found myself in a ball of tears at my dining room table after watching a clip that had been aired on National television a...

 On the 31st of March 2018 Holger and I will have been foster parents for a year officially with the paper work behind us.  The shock of the tale is we really thought we would be able to give all of these children a forever home.  We intended to adopt, we were told that it was a possibility... Our hearts have had to shift and we have decided to embrace these children as if they are adopted and love them with our whole hearts even if they will not live with us forever.  They each have a home and we teach them about belonging to two families. Each one of these little lives have impacted our family and we will never be the same.  We have learnt so much about overcoming, hope, joy and resilience. These little lives are priceless and we want the best for each of them.  Please continue to keep us all in your prayers.   Especially keep our marriage in prayer that we would display the heart of GOD!

Who knew that we would take family planning to a whole new level.  We decided about three years ago that we were more serious about adopting and were going to open our home.  We checked in with our children and they were all in support of the idea. This year in January we started fostering 4 little children and we really hope we can give them a forever home. There are more details about this on my personal blog... Kay's Blog We are a family of 9 now, yes Holger and I have 7 children.  The challenges and the beauty of this is something we are working with every single day. We are not that young anymore...

It has been two years almost since I started this blog.  I started out stating that it was part of us trying to find out what crossroads we stood at.  It is interesting now to look back on what developed since then.  We did not move anywhere or change anything majorly... We simply dug our heels in deeper.  We decided with the encouragement of a very good friend to take the projects we had been running in and from our local church into non-profit organisations.  This has been a challenging journey, but in the last few weeks have again been able to see that this is part of a much bigger picture... although it is not clear yet. You can check out the work on  www.mercyaids.org  and the resilient kids website is currently under reconstruction.  Both organisations are also on facebook. Holger and I joined a new missions organisation last year.  We got to spend a glorious month in Germany while our kids stayed home safely in the care of our de...

2013 started with the publishing of the MercyAids website.  We had big dreams and  we felt clear of what it was we were called to.   Resilient Kid s goes on and this year we have seen a stirring of movement of renewed life... even after it looked like we had had to lay it down a year ago. At the same time I had taken on a role with the Connec t Network to help them expand their network goal of  safer communities for children in the Western Cape.   I felt this role was/is an important stepping stone to the unfolding of dream to see communities supported to effectively care for the OVC.  I had things in my hands I could bring to this dream... like two fish and five loaves. However, although clearer in our heads of what it is we have in our hands and what it is we are meant to be doing... the challenges and difficulties to keep doing it like we have been doing it has become extremely confusing in the last few months. I guess that greatest challenge has ...

In 2012 we started the year in a surrendered place.  We were already starting to battling with a place of difficulty of how things were turning out.  We had inside of us an understanding of what it was we were called to and we could see that over the years that we had come along side struggling organisations and individuals with a heart for orphans and vulnerable children.  We could see that we had influenced and supported... Doors opened up for me to go to different countries to give away what we had learnt over the years.  This trip took me on two life changing journeys.  My visit to Uganda and Liberia expanded my heart and my vision. Seeing a greater need of OVC beyond our borders, beyond Fisantekraal... A desire for neworks of support was born. With our new found clarity of who we are and what we are called to we started putting MercyAIDS in a clearer form...

As the funding for camps and training came in via Philippi Trust for training and camps in 2009 and 2010 we were able to with Barbara work out a more sustainable community model for growing kid's works at a grass roots level. Resilient Kids was born in 2009 out of the OVC program of Philippi Trust and shaped very much by the experiences we had had and the encouragement that we were on to something good.  We felt strongly at the time that the model could be adapted by any community wanting to get going with a work for the orphan and vulnerable child in the community. The model had to do with empowering local community people while equipping them with skill.  We had an amazing opportunity of seeing this happen in the Eastern Cape. By the end of 2010 we believed that to effectively do this work of training and equipping communities that we needed a training space conducive to this need.  A place where we could therapeutically work with the vulnerable adult and child. ...

Regina died at the end of 2007 and with her went our dreams of a bigger work for OVC in the Mfuleni area.  We tried for a while to knock on different doors to see if it was possible to keep on without her, but kept hitting dead ends. At the end of 2007 we heard about Patricia.  Here I think it is important to note that the entire time we were looking to get funding to take work in Fisantekraal to a new level.  Especially with OVC work.  We had started a nutritional support program for people battling a terminal illness. When I met Patricia we immediately kicked off a a relationship. We were able to stay involved with Nondumiso in Mfuleni and at the same time work with Patricia in Du Noon. Our dream to come a long side a organisation that works with OVC but struggling kept us involved in Mfuleni. We got involved with Patricia at the same time, she had an amazing heart for OVC and for people suffering with HIV.  It was in these years that I was working out t...

Holger had met Regina on a camp.  He spoke about her a lot and often refered to her as the Mother Theresa of Mfuleni.  I met her on my first camp and too was taken in by this amazing woman who loved children and used all she had to meet their needs.  She ran a huge soup kitchen and fed many many children every day. Holger and Regina worked together closely for two years.  We raised money and support to finish her home and expand her kitchen.  Regina and I started dreaming of our development plan for support structure for OVC that included psycho-social support groups and... we looked at halls, fields and were just about to run our first training together when we got the terrible call. Regina had died... We worked with Regina's daughter in keeping the home going.  Nondumiso is an amazing woman and she was committed to keeping her mom's work going but she also worked full time and really only wanted to have a home... she was very good to the children in...

In 2005/2006 we had a angel come and stay with us and help me with the kids so that I could get more involved with the counselling work.  She was a huge blessing to the family.  We would work hard at home and every now and again send Holger off to camp and he would come back and tell us all about his experiences.  My heart was awakening... Sarah came back to visit for two weeks after she had left in the September of 2006.  She challenged me to go on camp and she would come a long a help me with my kids... That was it... I was hardly on camp and I knew I was home... I was on the journey we needed to take... as a family.

In 2005, Philippi Trust where I was studying counselling at the time introduced a new  program.  It was a camp program for Orphans an Vulnerable children.  The first time I heard about it, was when the director at the time had just got back from a trip to the Eastern Cape and came to tell our dipoma class about his experience. I felt immediately in the deep side of me that Holger should get involved...  this sounded like the kind of thing he carried in his heart.

In 2004, we left YWAM.  This was a very painful decision.  We had loved our experience in YWAM and all the things we had learnt, but it was no longer a home for us. Richard Maybery the minister of the Vineyard Church at the time, met and prayed with us and encouraged us to get involved in a local community and start working out what God was saying to us... This is where our journey in Fisantekraal began... and the birth of our third child. While this was going on our supporters and family in Germany had started a TRUST to house our support and give governance to our work.  We had a covering church and support.

We moved to Beautiful Gate after an outreach with a team from Tyler in the North of South Africa.  Holger worked on the logistical side of things and I worked in the Pre-School.  We were pregnant with our second child and our first was in the preschool with me. We learnt a lot in these three years, but the shaping, shocking and defining moment was when children died of Chicken pox... the HIV virus in their bodies compromised their ability to fight it... 7 children in a small space of time.  It is sent us into an existential shock.  I decided to study.  It helped that I had a baby in me to to use as an excuse to get out of a very painful situation. Holger stayed with Beautiful Gate till 2003 and I stayed at home with my two children and studied... We left Beautiful Gate mostly I think because I could not see our vision to come along side organisations working with OVC to get them helped and be supported working out.  Toby and Aukje after sitting and l...

We married and moved to Texas where we did a school that challenged us deeply.  A school that was meant to train up teachers for the nations but very much revolutionized the way we looked at governments and people. It was in this place that we had our first child.  It was in this place where we got as a couple the first chance to explore what it meant to reach out to children in crisis. We joined the Mercy Works department on the base and for 3 years were involved with outreaches and relief projects that included China, Albania and Hondorus and others.  This was our experiential learning training ground. www.ywamtyler.org  is the place where we did the first five years of our marriage.  We learnt a lot about God, man and cultures.  We got to teach, serve, dream, work... play. It is with very fond memories that we look back on Ywam Tyler. We still have many friends that we are in touch with over Facebook and email and we know that we are going to h...

We have been in South Africa as a family for 13 years next month.  We left Tyler, Texas 13 years ago with a clear vision in our heads of how we were going to help with the orphan crisis in South Africa and Africa. Over the next few days, I am going to use this blog as a way to reflect on this journey we have taken as a family... Part of the reflection has to do with trying to figure out how to read the current place we are in. It feels like a crossroads...