A Home full of Hope

Everyone has a story.

In some there are short stories in others a novel, and a rare few should have an entire series written about them. This is a reflection which I should have written some time ago. I have not done so because I have not felt worthy to try and capture in words such an astounding life story as Mam’ Khanyi, founder of The Home of Hope.

I remember a story from my youth of a young woman walking down a beach. There were millions of starfish which had washed up from the sea during an unseasonal and maybe unexpected high tide. With the sun baking down and the waters receding to the low points of their natural rhythms, the future of the stranded sea stars looked grim, and a gory genocide would befall this galaxy.

The young woman bends down, picks up a starfish and throws it like a frisbee back into the waiting waves. She takes a few more paces, stares out to the ocean in contemplation, bends down and repeats the process with every few silent strides. An old man is walking towards her and he watches with an increasing interest as he approaches. She is naturally beautiful and he has always been curious, and so there is more than one reason to stop and enquire about her actions.

“Why do you do this?” He asks. “There are millions of them washed up, how on earth do you think you will make a difference?”

She winks at him - this is my version of the story, bends down to pick up another sea creature and throws it athletically back into waters.

“Well I made a difference to that one.” She says as she smiles and wanders off into the setting sun.

I finally met that lady. Not on an outer beach, but in the inner city, and she wasn’t saving starfish, she was saving street children.

For twenty years Mam’ Khanyi has been lovingly picking up those who only wished they were beaten by the sun, or left alone on a beach somewhere. She has cared for them and accommodated them. She has nurtured and nourished them, and no amount of writing could capture her levels of love nor the hoops she has jumped through to give them Hope.

“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”

Maya Angelou

If no amount of writing could capture her spirit, then there has been nothing which could curtail it either. Along her journey of running into red tape, she has dodged the drug lords and passed the pimps. She has side stepped the cynics and tackled the traffickers. Mam Khanyi has fronted up when many would have backed down, and as a result she has grown a galaxy of young stars which at this point in time number over ten thousand. She loves every one of them as she has loved her own five biological children whom she has looked after on her own since her husband passed away when the youngest was a mere few months old. Every cent of her once thriving business where she made a good living for herself has been spent on making a great life for others, and nothing will stop her from continuing the work she believes she was born to do.

She gives Thanks to God, and we who meet her say Thank You too for there will always be a street child in need of love, a cup of tea, and a warm bed in her Home of Hope.

We met with Mam Khanyi twice last week, and we met with her on line. During Covid, we have missed her warm embrace and her humble story, and the reunion reignited our relationship once more. For a time we had been stuck in the oxymoron of a virtual immersion, and our thinking had been our greatest barrier to continuing the work we love.

Mam Khanyi appeared on screen with all the same Humanity and humility which we have come to love. She engaged with the same energy and authenticity, and there was nothing virtual about our tears.

A delegate remarked that perhaps Mam Khanyi had achieved three extraordinary things with this army of orphans:

She has given them someone to love.

She has given them something to do.

She has given them something to hope for.

Mam’ would reply that it was her children who gave her these gifts.

And as a few people before me have said:

“That can be enough sometimes.”

Steve Hall

P.S. Though we missed the smell of her scented candles, and the taste of her raw honey because it was a virtual meeting, what lives with us still is the warmth of her light and the sweetness of her love.

Those too, can be more than enough sometimes.