The theme of this year’s retreat day was: “Coming back to God.” Twenty of the home care givers and childcare workers from our Action Group Tlamelang had followed the invitation and gathered on 06.09.24 at Molemane Eye Nature Reserve. That is a remote place located at a small, beautiful sea. The accommodation is quite simple but what is so good is that this is really a quiet place.
For the first evening Christel Hermann had prepared some questions that helped the participants to look back. How do you feel about your connection with your family, your friends, colleagues and finally your connection with God? Do you feel sad about something? Do you feel that you have somehow lost focus in your life?
In quietness everybody wrote down individual notes on these questions and on a separate paper the main worries that made life difficult during the past months.
After supper we came together in small groups to share. Many participants have troubles in their families: The head of the household is addicted to alcohol. He brings shame to the family and squanders its meagre resources. A family that is deeply divided in two camps or members of the family despise the work of our member etc.
Usually, family problems are hidden from outsiders in Setswana culture. But here our members experienced a room of trust where they could share their worries.
Later we gather around a fire. The sound of choruses filled the night, and everybody could throw the worries and troubles that were written on their paper into the fire.
On Saturday Wolfgang Hermann gave an introduction into meditation based on the healing of the ten people with leprosy (Luke 17, 11-19). The long time of silence gave everybody the opportunity to remember whether they have also experienced a healing from a disease or a painful experience in life. Why were the nine not going back to Jesus and what made the one to come back to him? What would it mean for me practically to come back to God and to thank Him? After the individual quiet time there was a long time of sharing in two groups where a lot of the participants told the others of their moving experiences. 
The practise of Qi Gong relaxed our muscles and minds. At the end we created an intersession web. Everybody was choosing one other member of the group for whom (s)he promised to pray in the coming weeks. We parted ways in a joyful mood.
My heart however becomes heavy when I remember that in October the funding for these co-workers will end. Our application for a new contract with the Independent Development Trust was not approved. Another application to the Gender Based Violence and Femicide Fund was approved but will not benefit the members of the Tlamelang. There is only one outstanding application left….
Wolfgang Hermann